Firefox 3 Beta 5

by havoc [ posted: 10.May.2008 10:12 PM ] [dura-link][I]
I upgraded my notebook to (K)Ubuntu 8.10 last weekend. I was surprised to see that Firefox 3 Beta 5 was the default browser. Really surprised. After using FF3b5 for a week, all I can think to say as far as a review is concerned is "Sweet!" It seems to be considerable more stable than FF2 ever turned out to be. It's also lots faster! Again, as with KDE4, I'm missing some of my darling plugins, but that's not the fault of the Firefox team. I expect that I won't have to wait long for my plugins to be updated to FF3.

blogs and journals

by havoc [ posted: 10.May.2008 10:07 PM ] [dura-link][I]
I blog and I journal. I don't blog as much as I journal some times. My journals are private. I think all of the time, but I generally don't think my thoughts are worthy of public exposure. Some people journal in public on their blogs. It is precisely because I find that tedious that I assume you would find my mundane journal entries intolerable.

... I'd blog more if I had more thoughts worthy of sharing.

Me and KDE4

by havoc [ posted: 10.May.2008 10:04 PM ] [dura-link][I]
I installed KDE 4.0 as soon as the repositories were ready for Ubuntu 7.10. I played with it for about an hour over a couple days, then went back to my KDE3 nest. The KDE4 team has done a great job with 4.0, but it still has miles to go, and everyone knows it. Being terminally optimistic, I always log into the 4.0 desktop whenever I see a big update to KDE 4.0 -- which is about once/month.

This last upgrade has been great! I've even lived in KDE4 for about the last week, very comfortably. There are still lots of things I'm missing -- an external taskbar, a complete Konsole (that remembers my tabs and has proper tab controls -- I'm gong to see if I can get the 3.5 Konsole to nest in the 4.0 desktop), and a slew of taskbar tools that aren't out for 4.0, yet.

I've gotten to be not as much of a bleeding edge user of Linux as I used to be, but I'd say that 4.0 isn't ready for most people yet. I still may defect back to 3.5, but I'm very happy with where 4.0 is going. I'd even say that I'm impressed with the pace -- even if I'm itching to see stuff completed and rolled out.

One for the nay-sayers -- Great News Today!

by havoc [ posted: 4.May.2008 08:46 PM ] [dura-link][I]
John Mark Reynolds has dropped a blog over at ScriptoriumDaily that I could hardly agree with more:

Forget the good old days, this is a great time to be alive. When I remember the stories my grandparents told me of their childhood, then it puts todays headlines in perspective.

Here are ten reasons I am glad to be alive now as a traditional Christian and not when my grandparents were young adults in the 1930’s.

Number 1: The Christian church is booming globally.
....

Computer makers push device builders for Linux-compatible hardware

by havoc [ posted: 2.May.2008 06:38 PM ] [dura-link][I]
This is exciting!:

At the Linux Foundation meeting in Austin, Texas, last month, major PC vendors ASUS, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo said they would be telling their chipset, component, and peripheral OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) that they were going to demand Linux-compatible hardware from them.

Two Logic Bombs Against Obama

by havoc [ posted: 1.May.2008 12:59 PM ] [dura-link][I]
from The Constructive Curmudgeon by Doug Groothuis


Concerning Obama's relationship to the Jeremiah Wright:

1. Either (a) he knew of his irrational, conspiritorial, and divisive views or (b) he didn't.
2. If (a), Obama is culpable for supporting egegrious error.
3. If (b), Obama is an ignoramus about the basic teachings of his own church, and not a serious church goer (even though he avows that he is and is appealing to many religious people for this reason).
4. If either (a) or (b), Obama suffers from several moral impoverishment and does not possess the leadership character to be the most powerful person in the world.
(5. (a) is far more likely than (b).)
(I was inspired by Sarah Scott for this argument.)

--------------
On Abortion:

1. Obama says he doesn't know the status of the unborn.
2. Obama, therefore, supports abortion on demand as do all good Democrats today. It is an item of (bad) faith for them.
3. If one does not know the status of the unborn, one should be conservative and protect that unborn living, human being, which, if left alone, will develop into someone just like us. (One cannot dispute that the fetus is a living human, even if one has--unjustifiable--qualms about personhood.) Because the stakes are so high, the benefit of doubt should be given to the human life; the burden of proof should be on the life-taker.
4. Obama, on the contrary, thinks that his ignorance justifies the ongoing killing of well over a million innocent humans a year without any legal restriction.
5. This reveals Obama to be morally incompetent at the deepest possible level. If he cannot see the truth at this level, why expect him to recognize it elsewhere--just because he has a good speaking voice? His supposed concern for "the poor and oppressed" is given the lie. Who is more oppressed than the aborted unborn today?
 http://theconstructivecurmudgeon.blogspot.co....ma.html

Thinking about Expelled: the movie

by havoc [ posted: 29.Apr.2008 09:40 AM ] [dura-link][I]
I haven't gotten all hot and bothered about Expelled. I'm not beating any drums. I'm not even reading the reviews. I'm casually glancing at different people's responses. I don't know if I'll watch it or not.

Here is a blog entry that really captures an honest view of the whole thing.

Death and Taxes... Well, Taxes

by havoc [ posted: 27.Mar.2008 06:43 PM ] [dura-link][I]
The lack of tax software for Linux has been one of the more painful banes of the life of the Linux user.

The Internet (the World Wide Web; port 80, specifically), and the Firefox browser along with the cooperation of tax software companies has finally relieved that pain.

Linux.com has a Review: Filing US federal taxes under Linux.

Yay! Maybe next year I'll hazard it. This year, I already passed off my taxes to a friendly book keeper.

The Spellbinder hits Italy

by havoc [ posted: 26.Mar.2008 07:42 PM ] [dura-link][I]
Too weird:

Fiction: DC Comics Spellbinder

Reality: 'Hypnotist' thief hunted in Italy

Police in Italy have issued footage of a man who is suspected of hypnotising supermarket checkout staff to hand over money from their cash registers.

In every case, the last thing staff reportedly remember is the thief leaning over and saying: "Look into my eyes", before finding the till empty.

Bill’s Quote of the Day

by havoc [ posted: 26.Mar.2008 09:37 AM ] [dura-link][I]
A very good post at Regularly Expressing today, Bill’s Quote of the Day:

I have a “quote of the day” feature on my Google home page. This is the one I saw today:

Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.
- Bill Gates

What is efficiency, and how do we measure it? I probably spend an hour or two a week at church, but I think I gain a great deal from it… both in terms of the spiritual recharging it supplies to me and the life lessons it teaches to my children. I think it is no small benefit to a little one to see his/her parents on their knees giving thanks to his Creator.

Many people complain about the “boring ritual,” etc. But unless you regularly worship God you will probably never understand the kind of spiritual consolations that can descend on you in that environment. I suppose color blind people may find rainbows uninteresting, or gazing at them to be inefficient.

Did I ever tell you the story about the merry-go-round?

by havoc [ posted: 21.Mar.2008 09:17 PM ] [dura-link][I]
When I was a college freshman, two of my friends and I decided, spontaneously, to do a conservation of angular momentum experiment with a very efficient, small merry-go-round in Sundown, Texas.

On a whim, I assigned it to some of the kids in my eighth grade science class a few weeks ago. After three weeks of excuses, I assigned it to some of the juniors in my Algebra 2 class. By that Sunday evening, I had a text message on my phone that the video was ready. By Monday morning the video of 4 students doing the experiment was on my computer. By Thursday afternoon, I had video of 8 students repeating the experiment.

Now, you can vicariously enjoy the experience. If you're very empathetic, you'll get to share in their suffering.

Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE1fEReMi2A

Observations from a political hermit

by havoc [ posted: 8.Mar.2008 11:02 AM ] [dura-link][I]
As I see this year's presidential election from afar, and through the foggy lens of not really paying much attention, I'm finding myself still developing opinions in spite of my self-enforced ignorance. (I'm not watching television, I'm not listening to the radio, I'm not reading the newspapers or magazines, and I'm staying away from internet news sites.)

I decided a long time ago, "I might vote for Stupid (some random Republican candidate), but I will not vote for Evil (pick your Democrat candidate)." Once it became clear that JohnMcCain was going to take the Republican nomination, it became clear that Stupid was going to be appearing on this fall's ballot. It was coming down to Evil vs. Evil. I won't vote forMcCain. (I won't go into McCain right now. Maybe later. He's a hero. He deserves that honor. I'm not voting for him.)

So, it comes down to, "Would it every be possible for me to vote for Hillary?" Obama falls beyond the pale of a patriotic American's vote, so there's really nothing interesting to say about that.

Here are the advantages I see in voting for Hillary:
 - She's a megalomaniac
 - She's predictable
 - She's still married to Wild Bill (William Jefferson Blithe Clinton* [Impeached])
 - Wild Bill* is still completely dysfunctional
 - Wild Bill* will be a stone around Hillary's neck
 - Wild Bill* will demand constant media attention, and do whatever he needs to get it
 - It is possible, but unlikely that Hillary will divorce Wild Bill* while in office
 - Even divorced or separated, Wild Bill* will still be the ex-president [impeached], and that garners a significant media platform for his antics, which will still be tied back to Hillary
 - After two year, history being a good indicator, America will likely elect another strong, conservative congress
 - 6 years of glorious gridlock
 - Gridlock limits the damage that government can do to it's people

I'm agreeing with Dad that Hillary is our best option (of three viable evils). I'm even starting to consider that a vote for the most-containable evil is the patriotic thing to do.

Two questions remain:
 - Will Hillary get the DNC nomination?
 - Can I swallow my oath, and vote for evil?

Tags for the RE

by havoc [ posted: 8.Mar.2008 11:01 AM ] [dura-link][I]
I'm really starting to consider adding tags to the RE. Right now, I really want to add them as a module and not as core functionality. I think they are core, but I want to keep the RE core code as clean as possible and even add core functionality as modules that will be distributed with the core code and enabled by default rather than continually adding functionality to the RE base code.

That means I have to finish "RE 3.0," and roll that out so that I can start adding features like tags. It's been a long, long time since I messed with the RE code. With no one else working on the code, few people using it and no one asking for new features, I haven't been very inspired to finish that work I started in what is now the "2.5" code.

Oh, well.

Really good food

by havoc [ posted: 25.Feb.2008 08:42 PM ] [dura-link][I]
Theology Unplugged podcast from Reclaiming the Mind. Even though these guys are associated with a megachurch (Stonebriar Community Church), the stuff they're saying seems to me to be very solid, very biblical and very sound.

Good, good stuff. I've been rolling the podcasts into audiobook, grouped by topic. that makes them much easier for me to listen to.

Emergent Church

by havoc [ posted: 25.Feb.2008 07:49 PM ] [dura-link][I]
Wow, Ravi Zacharias, Albert Mohler (President of Southern Baptist Seminary) and R.C. Sproul discussing the Emergent church.... that's a lot of theological weight on one stage at one time!

Old abandoned photo

by havoc [ posted: 9.Feb.2008 09:38 AM ] [dura-link][I]
I was just looking though some old photos I had spent time working on. Most of them have just been abandoned after I decided they weren't as good as I thought they were.

I remember spending a lot of time on this photo before finally giving up on it.

img_2600-distressed+stained.jpg (158.7 kb)

[quote] Quotes from G.K. Chseterton, The Everlasting Man

by havoc [ posted: 26.Jan.2008 10:15 AM ] [dura-link][I]
Good book. Not as good as Orthodoxy.

But this little incident has always lingered in my mind as a sort of parable. Most modern histories of mankind begin with the word evolution, and with a rather wordy exposition of evolution, for much the same reason that operated in this case. There is something slow and soothing and gradual about the word even about the idea. As a matter of fact, it is not, touching these primary things, a very practical word or a very profitable idea. Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying 'In the beginning God created heaven and earth' even if you only mean 'In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.' For God is by its nature a name of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any more than he could create one. But evolution really is mistaken for explanation. It has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds the impression that they do understand it and everything else; just as many of them live under the sort of illusion that they have read the Origin of Species.

But this notion of something smooth and slow, like the ascent of a slope, is a great part of the illusion. It is an illogicality as well as an illusion; for slowness has really nothing to do with the question. An even is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one.
- G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy.
- G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Now each of these explanations in itself seems to be singularly inadequate; but taken together they do suggest something of the very mystery which they miss. There must surely have been something not only mysterious but many-sided about Christ if so many smaller Christs can be carved out of him. If the Christian Scientist is satisfied with him as a spiritual healer and the Christian Socialist is satisfied with him as a social reformer, so satisfied that they do not even expect him to be anything else, it looks as if he really covered rather more ground than they could be expected to expect. And it does seem to suggest that there might be more than they fancy in these other mysterious attributes of casting out devils or prophesying doom.
- G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

An old Don with D. D. after his name may have become the typical figure of a bore; but that was because he was himself bored with his theology, not because he was excited about it. It was precisely because he was admittedly more interested in the Latin of Plautus than in the Latin of Augustine, in the Greek of Xenophon than in the Greek of Chrysostom. It was precisely because he was more interested in a dead tradition than in a decidedly living tradition. In short, it was precisely because he was himself a type of the time in which Christian faith was weak. It was not because men would not hail, if they could, the wonderful and almost wild vision of a Doctor of Divinity.
- G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

[quote] Good thought on Christian discipleship

by havoc [ posted: 10.Jan.2008 04:31 PM ] [dura-link][I]
This quote applies to the independent discipleship aspect of Christian discipleship... and all Christian discipleship should lead to the disciple continuing independently while being fully engaged in the lives of others.... but anyway, the quote:

One's strength is often, paradoxically, also one's flaw, as the ancient Greeks pointed out. A quest for knowledge for the glory of God (if one has certain gifts) is laudable. There are too many Christian ignoramuses around, and they are making far too much noise and selling too many books and making too many videos. However, distributing one's attention too broadly is unwise. Disciplined study requires limits, boundaries--saying No to much, saying Yes to less.

-- Dr. Doug Groothuis

Make criminals buy their own computers -- another reason to not run Windows

by havoc [ posted: 31.Dec.2007 08:50 AM ] [dura-link][I]
Storm, Nugache lead dangerous new botnet barrage

But this new piece of malware, which came to be known as Nugache, was a game-changer. With no C&C server to target, bots capable of sending encrypted packets and the possibility of any peer on the network suddenly becoming the de facto leader of the botnet, Nugache, Dittrich knew, would be virtually impossible to stop.

[...]

Nugache, and its more famous cousin, the Storm Trojan, are not simply the next step in the evolution of malware. They represent a major step forward in both the quality of software that malware authors are producing and in the sophistication of their tactics. Although they're often referred to as worms, Storm and Nugache are actually Trojans. The Storm creator, for example, sends out millions of spam messages on a semi-regular basis, each containing a link to content on some remote server, normally disguised in a fake pitch for a penny stock, Viagra or relief for victims of a recent natural disaster. When a user clicks on the link, the attacker's server installs the Storm Trojan on the user's PC and it's off and running.

Various worms, viruses, bots and Trojans over the years have had one or two of the features that Storm, Nugache, Rbot and other such programs possess, but none has approached the breadth and depth of their feature sets. Rbot, for example, has more than 100 features that users can choose from when compiling the bot. This means that two different bots compiled from an identical source could have nearly identical feature sets, yet look completely different to an antivirus engine.

[...]

As scary as Storm and Nugache are, the scarier thing is that they represent just the tip of the iceberg. Experts say that there are several malware groups out there right now that are writing custom Trojans, rootkits and attack toolkits to the specifications of their customers. The customers are in turn using the malware not to build worldwide botnets a la Storm, but to attack small slices of a certain industry, such as financial services or health care.

Rizo, a variant of the venerable Rbot, is the poster child for this kind of attack. A Trojan in the style of Nugache and Storm, Rizo has been modified a number of times to meet the requirements of various different attack scenarios. Within the course of a few weeks, different versions of Rizo were used to attack customers of several different banks in South America. Once installed on a user's PC, it monitors Internet activity and gathers login credentials for online banking sites, which it then sends back to the attacker. It's standard behavior for these kinds of Trojans, but the amount of specificity and customization involved in the code and the ways in which the author changed it over time are what have researchers worried.

[...]

"I'm pretty sure that there are tactics being shared between the Nugache and Storm authors," Dittrich said. "There's a direct lineage from Sdbot to Rbot to Mytob to Bancos. These guys can just sell the Web front-end to these things and the customers can pick their options and then just hit go."

Stupid is...

by havoc [ posted: 23.Dec.2007 12:38 AM ] [dura-link][I]
It's so sad that so many of the really big messes we make of our lives are things that would be easily avoided if we'd just listen to the people that love us and are telling us not to do the very stupid thing we're determined to do. I'm always amazed at how clearly I see the pitfalls, booby traps and hazards that litter the paths of other people, but I fail to see them on my own road. If we could learn to stop and really ponder (too much Pinky and the Brain) the warnings others offer us, no matter how much we want to reject them, we could save ourselves the trouble of experience.

It's hard to watch someone you love destroy a good sized piece of their own lives because they're being all "fairy tale" about the situation they are in (or about to put themselves into). On the flip side, I know good and well, from recent experience, that listening to the warnings of the people around me was almost impossible as I waded into one minor disaster after another while those around me shouted and waved their hands in fruitless alarm.

Ah, life....

[quote] Another quote from "The Lost Tools of Learning" by Dorothy Sayers

by havoc [ posted: 19.Dec.2007 09:27 AM ] [dura-link][I]

But one cannot live on capital forever. However firmly a tradition is rooted, if it is never watered, though it dies hard, yet in the end it dies. And today a great number--perhaps the majority--of the men and women who handle our affairs, write our books and our newspapers, carry out our research, present our plays and our films, speak from our platforms and pulpits--yes, and who educate our young people--have never, even in a lingering traditional memory, undergone the Scholastic discipline. Less and less do the children who come to be educated bring any of that tradition with them. We have lost the tools of learning--the axe and the wedge, the hammer and the saw, the chisel and the plane-- that were so adaptable to all tasks. Instead of them, we have merely a set of complicated jigs, each of which will do but one task and no more, and in using which eye and hand receive no training, so that no man ever sees the work as a whole or "looks to the end of the work."

Time for a change of scenery

by havoc [ posted: 16.Dec.2007 09:19 PM ] [dura-link][I]
I'm going to start thinking about a new "theme" for GS. This brown-on-brown-on-brown is getting rather long-in-the-tooth. I'm thinking something blue right now, but it has to be more than just blue.

Since the RE does readily lend itself to theming, don't expect too much.... and don't expect it soon.

[linux] Amazon.com MP3 downlaoder

by havoc [ posted: 16.Dec.2007 08:09 PM ] [dura-link][I]
To: Amazon.com Customer Service
Issue: MP3 Downloads: Downloader Application Issues

Is there an estimate on the delivery date for the Linux downloader? I'm am very excited and very pleased that Amazon.com is offering MP3 downloads, and that those downloads are available to the Linux user. I, however, am not pleased that I have the privilege of paying 70% for an album than individuals who happen to be Windows or Mac users.

[quote] Quotes from "The Lost Tools of Learning" by Dorothy Sayers

by havoc [ posted: 15.Dec.2007 11:23 AM ] [dura-link][I]
The following quotes were all gleaned from "The Lost Tools of Learning" by Dorothy Sayers

For we let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them all to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects. We who were scandalized in 1940 when men were sent to fight armored tanks with rifles, are not scandalized when young men and women are sent into the world to fight massed propaganda with a smattering of "subjects"; and when whole classes and whole nations become hypnotized by the arts of the spell binder, we have the impudence to be astonished. We dole out lip-service to the importance of education--lip- service and, just occasionally, a little grant of money; we postpone the school-leaving age, and plan to build bigger and better schools; the teachers slave conscientiously in and out of school hours; and yet, as I believe, all this devoted effort is largely frustrated, because we have lost the tools of learning, and in their absence can only make a botched and piecemeal job of it.

Does "go back" mean a retrogression in time, or the revision of an error? The first is clearly impossible per se; the second is a thing which wise men do every day.

At this early stage, it does not matter nearly so much that these things should be fully understood as that they should be known and remembered.

Mathematics--algebra, geometry, and the more advanced kinds of arithmetic--will now enter into the syllabus and take its place as what it really is: not a separate "subject" but a sub- department of Logic. It is neither more nor less than the rule of the syllogism in its particular application to number and measurement, and should be taught as such, instead of being, for some, a dark mystery, and, for others, a special revelation, neither illuminating nor illuminated by any other part of knowledge.

Wherever the matter for Dialectic is found, it is, of course, highly important that attention should be focused upon the beauty and economy of a fine demonstration or a well-turned argument, lest veneration should wholly die. Criticism must not be merely destructive; though at the same time both teacher and pupils must be ready to detect fallacy, slipshod reasoning, ambiguity, irrelevance, and redundancy, and to pounce upon them like rats. This is the moment when precis-writing may be usefully undertaken; together with such exercises as the writing of an essay, and the reduction of it, when written, by 25 or 50 percent.

To learn six subjects without remembering how they were learnt does nothing to ease the approach to a seventh; to have learnt and remembered the art of learning makes the approach to every subject an open door.

For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.

[legacies] Chet Atkins

by havoc [ posted: 12.Dec.2007 09:32 PM ] [dura-link][I]
I was thinking about (and listening to) Chet Atkins' music. If you don't look at anything other than his discography, it's impressive:

Discography

    * 1952 - Chet Atkins' Gallopin' Guitar
    * 1953 - Stringin Along
    * 1953 - String Dustin'
    * 1954 - A Session with Chet Atkins
    * 1955 - Stringin' Along with Chet Atkins
    * 1955 - Chet Atkins in Three Dimensions
    * 1955 - The Amazing Chet Atkins
    * 1956 - Finger Style Guitar
    * 1957 - Hi Fi in Focus
    * 1958 - Chet Atkins at Home
    * 1959 - Mister Guitar
    * 1959 - Hum & Strum Along with Chet Atkins
    * 1959 - Chet Atkins in Hollywood
    * 1960 - The Other Chet Atkins
    * 1961 - Teensville
    * 1960 - After the Riot at Newport
    * 1961 - Chet Atkins' Workshop
    * 1961 - The Most Popular Guitar
    * 1961 - Chet Atkins Plays Great Movie Themes
    * 1961 - Christmas with Chet Atkins
    * 1962 - Down Home
    * 1962 - Plays Back Home Hymns
    * 1962 - Caribbean Guitar
    * 1963 - Our Man in Nashville
    * 1963 - Teen Scene
    * 1963 - Travelin'
    * 1963 - The Guitar Genius
    * 1964 - Guitar Country
    * 1964 - Progressive Pickin'
    * 1964 - Reminiscing
    * 1964 - The Best of Chet Atkins
    * 1964 - The Early Years of Chet Atkins & His Guitar
    * 1965 - My Favorite Guitars
    * 1965 - More of That Guitar Country
    * 1966 - Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles
    * 1966 - From Nashville with Love
    * 1966 - The Pops Goes Country
    * 1966 - The Best of Chet Atkins Vol. 2
    * 1966 - Music from Nashville, My Hometown
    * 1967 - It's A Guitar World
    * 1967 - Chet Atkins Picks the Best
    * 1967 - Class Guitar
    * 1967 - Chet
    * 1968 - Solo Flights
    * 1968 - Solid Gold 68
    * 1968 - Play Guitar with Chet Atkins
    * 1968 - Chet All The Way
    * 1968 - Hometown Guitar
    * 1969 - Relaxin' with Chet
    * 1969 - Lovers Guitar
    * 1969 - Solid Gold 69
    * 1969 - The Nashville String Band
    * 1970 - C.B. Atkins & C.E. Snow by Special Request
    * 1969 - Chet Atkins Picks on the Pops
    * 1970 - Yestergroovin'
    * 1970 - Solid Gold 70
    * 1970 - Me & Jerry(w/Jerry Reed)
    * 1970 - Down Home (with the Nashville String Band)
    * 1970 - Pickin' My Way
    * 1970 - This Is Chet Atkins
    * 1971 - Mr. Atkins, Guitar Picker
    * 1971 - Chet Atkins Guitar Method Volume 1 & 2
    * 1971 - For the Good Times
    * 1971 - Strung Up (with the Nashville String Band)
    * 1971 - Country Pickin'
    * 1971 - Identified!(Nashville String Band)
    * 1971 - Chet Floyd & Boots
    * 1972 - Me & Chet
    * 1972 - World's Greatest Melodies
    * 1972 - Now & Then
    * 1972 - American Salute (Boston Pops w/Chet Atkins)
    * 1972 - The Bandit
    * 1972 - Nashville Gold
    * 1972 - Picks on the Hits
    * 1973 - Greatest Hits of the 50's w/Arthur Fiedler
    * 1972 - Finger Pickin' Good
    * 1973 - Discover Japan
    * 1974 - Chet Atkins Picks on Jerry Reed
    * 1973 - Superpickers
    * 1974 - The Atkins - Travis Traveling Show
    * 1975 - The Night Atlanta Burned
    * 1975 - Famous Country Music Makers
    * 1975 - In Concert
    * 1975 - The Golden Guitar of Chet Atkins
    * 1973 - Alone
    * 1976 - Chester & Lester
    * 1975 - Chet Atkins Goes to the Movies
    * 1975 - Teen Scene (reissue)
    * 1977 - Love Letters
    * 1976 - The Best of Chet Atkins and Friends
    * 1977 - Me and My Guitar
    * 1977 - Chet Floyd & Danny
    * 1977 - A Legendary Performer
    * 1978 - Guitar Monsters
    * 1979 - And Then Came Chet
    * 1979 - First Nashville Guitar Quartet
    * 1980 - The Best of Chet on the Road - Live
    * 1980 - Reflections
    * 1981 - Country After All These Years
    * 1981 - Standard Brands
    * 1981 - Country Music
    * 1982 - Solid Gold Guitar
    * 1983 - Guitar Pickin' Man
    * 1983 - Great Hits of the Past
    * 1983 - Work It out with Chet Atkins C.G.P.
    * 1983 - East Tennessee Christmas
    * 1984 - Tennessee Guitar Man
    * 1984 - A Man & His Guitar
    * 1985 - Collectors Series
    * 1985 - Guitar for all Seasons
    * 1985 - Stay Tuned
    * 1986 - 20 of the Best
    * 1986 - Street Dreams
    * 1987 - Sails
    * 1988 - Chet Atkins, C.G.P.
    * 1988 - Pickin' on Country
    * 1989 - Masters of the Guitar: Together
    * 1989 - Pickin' the Hits
    * 1990 - Neck & Neck (with Mark Knopfler)
    * 1990 - The Magic of Chet Atkins
    * 1990 - Country Gems
    * 1991 - The Romantic Guitar
    * 1992 - Sneakin' Around
    * 1992 - The RCA Years
    * 1993 - The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat
    * 1993 - Gallopin' Guitar
    * 1993 - Jazz From The Hills
    * 1994 - Simpatico (with Suzy Bogguss)
    * 1994 - Read My Licks
    * 1996 - The Essential Chet Atkins
    * 1996 - Almost Alone
    * 1997 - The Day Finger Pickers Took Over the World (with Tommy Emmanuel)
    * 1998 - Super Hits
    * 1998 - Masters
    * 2000 - Guitar Legend: The RCA Years
    * 2000 - Guitar Man
    * 2001 - RCA Country Legends
    * 2001 - The Master and His Music
    * 2002 - Chet Atkins Picks on the Grammys
    * 2002 - Tribute to Bluegrass
    * 2003 - The Best of Chet Atkins
    * 2003 - Solo Sessions
(source: wikipedia)

Does it make you wonder what kind of legacy you'll leave? obviously, it makes me think about mine.

[quote] Virtues

by havoc [ posted: 12.Oct.2007 09:10 PM ] [dura-link][I]

Virtues cannot be created instantaneously; the process by which they are acquired is part of the nature of having them. Each of us is given an opportunity to develop into a better or worse person. But we cannot grow in an environment that is free of risk and danger and disappointment. Just as God had good reasons for creating us with free will and for placing us in a lawlike environment, God also had good reasons for placing us in an environment that is challenging, that tests us.

-- Ron Nash, Faith and Reason, p 204

uphill ... both ways

by havoc [ posted: 28.Sep.2007 08:17 PM ] [dura-link][I]
I was talking to one of my coworkers (who also has a ChemE) about doing heat transfer and reactor design calcs on an old 7.6 MHz 8088 with 512 KB RAM.

We'd set up our MatchCAD docs or Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets with auto-calc turned off, PRINT OUT the document on a dot matrix printer, proof it 5 times, then, and only then attempt a single calculation on it, with iteration set to 1. If it completed with no errors, we'd set the iteration to the max allowed (was it 15 or 50 on Lotus 1-2-3), hit the 'recalc' key (F6?) 15 times (to fill the key buffer), and leave for supper.

The really funny thing is, none of that is exaggeration!

There is more number crunching done in 1 second of a cheap modern 3D video game than we probably did in 3 years of advanced engineering classes.

[quote] Augustin (Augustine) on the Literal Meaning of Genesis

by havoc [ posted: 26.Aug.2007 08:36 AM ] [dura-link][I]

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.

reblogging

by havoc [ posted: 26.Aug.2007 08:33 AM ] [dura-link][I]
I was just looking back though my "recent" blog entries to see if I had posted a quote that I really like form Augustin of Hippo. (I didn't find it.) I greatly cut back on my blogging several months ago. I know that almost no one reads it, so writing it becomes a very low priority.

What I found was a lot of things that made me smile when I posted them, and made me smile again when I read them. I found myself being glad that I had posted the quotes and regladdened that I read them and re-enjoyed them.

We'll see if today's experience has any kind of impact on my blogging patterns.

Nikon D3 Full-frame

by havoc [ posted: 23.Aug.2007 06:27 AM ] [dura-link][I]
Woohoo!

from DPReview:

It's here, after perhaps the longest period of speculation ever Nikon has today lifted the covers on their first full-frame digital SLR, the new 12.1 megapixel D3. The D3 is all about speed and sensitivity, twelve megapixels on a big CMOS chip means large photosites (8.45 µm pitch to be precise) and that adds up to base sensitivity of ISO 200 to 6400 with an additional two stop boost over that (up to ISO 25600). The other side of the speed story (apart from blistering AF and shutter lag) is that the D3 can shoot at nine frames per second with AF tracking or eleven frames per second without. Other headline features are a newly branded EXPEED image processor, a new 51-point AF sensor, color AF tracking, dual CF compartments (with UDMA support), an amazing 3.0" 922,000 pixel LCD monitor with Live View (including contrast detect auto-focus), HDMI video output and even a virtual horizon function which can tell you when you're holding the camera perfectly level.... The D3 will be available in November, at around US$5000.