To Seek, To Strive, To Find » Interesting

You can help yourself, but don’t take too much

Mike — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:14:42 +0000

Rouslan, I’d agree with you on that assessment that the Christian God is a parent. If you read the New Testament, God is referred to as a “Heavenly Father.” It’s no longer just being a follower, as in the Old Testament, but about sonship: (”Beloved, now are we the sons of God”, I John 3:2). The goal is to foster a father-child relationship with God. We are first encouraged to be followers of Paul (”be ye followers of me”, I Corinthians 4:16), then of Christ (”be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ”, I Corinthians 11:1), and ultimately of God directly (”Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children”, Ephesians 5:1).

However, I don’t think that’s the sole reason for the happiness of a Christian person. There certainly is comfort in the idea that a God is always watching and taking care of you, but at the same time I know plenty of people that would rather they were independent of a parent who is constantly looking over your shoulder. At the same time, the Bible encourages maturity (”that we may present every man perfect [in the Greek, mature] in Christ Jesus”, Colossians 1:28; “that ye may be made perfect [mature] and entire, wanting nothing”, James 1:4) rather than blind followership.

I’d point to a few other things that would contribute to a Christian’s happiness: grace (”Being justified freely by his grace”, Romans 3:24), peace (”Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God”, Romans 5:1), love (”Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us”, I John 3:1), freedom from guilt (”There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus”, Romans 8:1), among others. You could certainly argue that some of these stem from God as a Father, but they certainly aren’t limited to that context.

It’s definitely an interesting point you bring up though: if the Christian God weren’t a father/parent figure, would this change the foundational happiness of a Christian? I’d have to think about that one.

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The cat won’t fit in the toaster. Never mind, I’ll make a peanut butter sandwich. Where’s the blender?

Mike — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 14:38:54 +0000

On the walk from the train station to Ben’s house, there’s an area under a bridge that has some really interesting graffiti: “Free the Philosopher of Sandwiches.” Why? I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense to me either.

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Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time… a long time.

Mike — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 01:09:14 +0000

Good lord I haven’t updated in eons.

Lessee… I moved to Boston. Not really BOSTON Boston, but about 40 minutes out living with some family friends. I’m happy so far with it… even though this is mostly a bedroom community and you have to drive 20 minutes to get any shopping done. But it does mean I can jump on the commuter rail to visit the city and friends of mine. I work about 20 minutes north of where I live, and I’m only a few buildings away from clarkbw. Yes, THE clarkbw. And Steve’s also in the city, but he’s usually busy so I don’t get to bug him much.

(By the way, I’m going to link as much as possible to make you all cringe with information overload.)

I’m working for the IBM now doing Lotus Workplace/Notes development. We’re having fun working on the next version of Notes/Workplace that was recently shown to a bunch of Lotus customers. Right now I’m developing some Eclipse plugins along those lines. It’s a painful framework and overarchitected to the Nth degree, which makes my job +10 less exciting.

As far as the city goes, I’ve only been to two decent bar/pubs since I’ve been around:

The Plough and Stars (Cambridge)
John Harvard’s (Cambridge)

Plough and Stars is small and cozy, though it gets pretty loud with the live music they have. Though if you’re looking for a very Irish place, that’s the one. John Harvard’s is apparently a chain or something, but they have a ton of microbrew that is tasty. I haven’t been into Boston proper much for going out, since Ben and Co ™ are located Cambridge-ish, but McCabe promises he knows what’s good in Boston and says he’ll come out to give me a tour. That, and I’m supposed to bug Bryan.

Not too much else to report, other than my WoW addiction. Blame Ben and Alex for that. So if I’m online and don’t respond, don’t worry – I’m only giving my life away for $15 bucks a month… and I’m the one paying them.

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Sweetest. Idea. Ever.

Mike — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 20:10:11 +0000

Question blocks. ‘Nuff said.

Note: I haven’t updated in forever. I’ll fix this once I get my laptop back up and running the way it should be.

And down with them completely!

Mike — Tue, 03 May 2005 05:33:48 +0000

Hehehe. Down to the red coat and everything.

Oh, and I got a nice new digital camera, so I have a image gallery now too.

More later.

It seems to be peaceful. But it is incorrect.

Mike — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 20:01:37 +0000

I sent this in as an article to Slashdot, but given the retarded quality of their articles lately, I figured I’d post it here too, just in case.

A friend of mine in the Air Force ROTC program was looking through Google Maps recently and discovered their new satellite functionality. He found that his old base while he was enlisted (Nellis AFB) was in plain view. This is where the Air Force is testing out the new F-22 fighters that are the latest and greatest in air superiority. You also need a top secret clearance to even get near them. In the photograph, you can see them on the runway (they’re the line of planes of which 2 have desert camouflage).

I did a bit more research to see what other interesting things we can find satellite images of:

The White House (completely blurred)
The Pentagon (completely visible)
Naval Station, Annapolis (see the pretty aircraft carriers)
Nellis Air Force Range (contains Area 51, but you can only zoom in so far)
Fort Bragg, Pope AFB (one of the largest/most active Army bases in the US)
Fort Drum, NY (close to here)
Peterson AFB (home of NORAD)
Edwards AFB, CA
Paris Island (training for Marine Corps)

Kinda scary, ain’t it?

Edit: If you look at the Edwards AFB map a little bit closely, you’ll notice that the data is different than the data collected of the surrounding area. Lots of green, pretty images, until you get into a square of brown that contains Edwards. Looks like some of this stuff is probably supplied to Google.

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When people run in circles…

Mike — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 15:53:05 +0000

Today, during my walk from the dorm to work, I saw a guy on a unicycle riding from one part of campus over to the engineering building. This in itself is not particularly strange – I’ve seen a guy on a unicycle before, but on campus? I chuckled a bit to myself and moved on.

The weird part was that nobody else looked at him funny. Nobody turned to look at him as he passed. Nobody seemed to laugh. There was absolutely nothing weird about a guy using a unicycle to get across campus.

I go to a strange school.

Hmmm…

Mike — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 18:30:00 +0000

The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else. That is one of the main differences between us and our enemies. They seek to impose and expand an empire of oppression, in which a tiny group of brutal, self-appointed rulers control every aspect of every life. Our aim is to build and preserve a community of free and independent nations, with governments that answer to their citizens, and reflect their own cultures. And because democracies respect their own people and their neighbors, the advance of freedom will lead to peace.

Bush’s speechwriters need some serious help. We don’t force our form of government on anybody, yet we’re helping to promote democracy. They say that their aim is to promote governments “that answer to their own people and their neighbors”, yet in the next sentence it’s — “And because democracies…” Wait, democracies? Where did we get that idea? I think we underestimate their sneakiness.

Also, I point you to this conspiracy theory involving Superman (past the comic, at the bottom).

Muzak List

Mike — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 01:08:54 +0000

Open up the music player on your computer.
Set it to play your entire music collection.
Hit the “shuffle” command.
Tell us the title of the next ten songs that show up (with their musicians), no matter how embarrassing. That’s right, no skipping that Carpenters tune that will totally destroy your hip credibility. It’s time for total musical honesty. Write it up in your blog or journal and link back to at least a couple of the other sites where you saw this.
If you get the same artist twice, you may skip the second (or third, or etc.) occurrences. You don’t have to, but since randomness could mean you end up with a list of ten song with five artists, you can if you’d like.

Does an iPod count?

Shiver, by Coldplay
Mayonnaise, by Smashing Pumpkins
Aurora, by The Foo Fighters
San Simeon (live), by Goldfinger
First Wave Intact, by The Secret Machines
Hands Down (live), by Dashboard Confessional w/Michael Stipe
Firestarter, by Prodigy
Keasbey Nights, by Catch 22
Breathe, by Telepopmusic
Hemorrhage (In My Hands), by Fuel

I saw this on Cheese’s blog, and Steve followed suit.

Cheezy Goodness

Mike — Mon, 06 Dec 2004 17:50:02 +0000

Matt Finlayson: donny
Matt Finlayson: http://unsure.org/junkbox/unicorn.gif
Matt Finlayson: for your wallpaper.
Matt Finlayson: it’s MAJESTIC.
Me: roflol
Me: where do you find this stuff?
Matt Finlayson: god knows
Matt Finlayson: i shouldn’t be allowed on the internet without an adult.
…
Matt Finlayson: i don’t want to sound queer or nothing, but i think unicorns are kickass.