I don't have any photos of Thanksgiving this year. We opted not to cook and instead ate with some local friends, spending the rest of the time hanging out around the house with our friend Liz, guacamole, onion dip, and movies. I do, however, have some photos of the Canadian Thanksgiving party we threw together last month for Heather, who actually flew back to Canada for American Thanksgiving.
After delaying shaving and cutting my hair for the Hallowe'en costume, I let it go for a bit longer in solidarity with Mark, who has been doing No-Shave November. Of course, Rachel hated it with a passion, and so her passion for kissing me was significantly cooled. I finally got a haircut, which left a space between my head and my "beard" that I could not abide, and so it was removed. I think these pictures (and Rachel's enthusiastic response to my hairless face) are an argument against my employment of "the scruffy look" in the future.
It was supposed to be more of an afternoon trip, but by the time we got people together and made the drive out to Joshua Tree, it was more like prevening. In the past I have duct taped the knees of my ripped jeans for adventures such as these, but this time I was convinced to skip that particular ritual. The rocks are rough enough to provide a good grip, but they can be painful when skin is pressed into it by body weight. My knee made its displeasure with the outcome known in the form of several scrapes. Going forward, I'm likely to repair those pants, hot pink duct tape or not.
Despite the memes' passé status, being ancient history in internet time, we found a few good places to take planking and owling shots. Rachel, being a free spirit, insisted on climbing different rocks than the rest of us, then circled back and climbed our rocks too (her muscles punished her for the extra effort in the following days). One of the highlights of the trip was taking some great midair shots. I squeezed myself into a space beneath two large rocks and, since I left the SLR at home, tried to time the point-and-shoot camera just right. Thanks to our late start, the day concluded with the sun setting over the tops of the rocks, immediately decreasing the ambient temperature and reminding us that it was time to return home.
Perhaps to nullify the exercise, that evening we made ice cream sandwiches, layering a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie, creamy vanilla ice cream, and a chocolate chip cookie to craft an ultimate treat. No pictures of those – they disappeared too fast.
For Hallowe'en, I decided to try going as Sgt. Donny Donowitz, aka "The Bear Jew," from the movie Inglourious Basterds. I planned on acquiring some suspenders and a baseball bat from one of the local thrift stores, but they proved impossible to find in time. From now on, Rachel and I are going to attempt to acquire costume pieces throughout the year instead of a few weeks before the holiday. Since then I've cut my hair and shaved my face, but not before I put a decent effort toward No-Shave November in solidarity with my brother.
If I use it, will it turn into a prize wheel?
Recently, Loma Linda University used the slogan “Jesus. All.” to brand a series of worship services. Apparently it’s also the headline of a reform-type movement within the Seventh-Day Adventist church. It’s one of those phrases so firmly reflective of Christian tradition that, to Christians, it is incontrovertible. Upon closer, more objective examination, however, the statement falls down.
Mentioning the name of Jesus immediately excludes everyone who isn’t a “Christ-ian.” This is the basis of the whole evangelical and mission movement: converting people from other belief systems to Christianity, so that they may be saved. What’s the rationale for this? As in other faiths, the Bible, the Christian book, predictably says in John 14:6 that its hero, Jesus, is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through him.
That quote sounds straightforward. Nevertheless, I believe that everything in religious texts, including the Bible, needs to be critically evaluated to see if it actually makes sense. If Jesus is indeed the only way, how exactly do we use him to get to the Father? Ask him politely? He’s not here anymore, so that’s out. Christians say that we must accept his sacrifice of death and subsequent resurrection as sufficient to pave our way to heaven. Accept Jesus and be saved!
But what comes next? This acceptance, or some other symbol of it, like baptism, is that all we need? Can I do that and go on to do whatever destructive behavior I please, secure in the knowledge that I’m already saved? The Calvinist doctrine of “once saved, always saved” claims just that, and is rejected by most other Christian sects.
No, it seems that one’s actions must factor into the equation somewhere. A belief without action is worthless, as James expounds in chapter 2 of his book. So it appears that believing in Jesus but not living in the way he instructed is no good, which brings us back to the original problem. It seems to me that what Jesus meant was that the positively interacting lifestyle he demonstrated is the way to the Father, thus, those that attempt to emulate him are living the kind of life God wants to see.
From this, it follows that belief in Jesus as a divine savior is not necessary, as one can live in the way he instructed without believing he was divine, or even knowing much about his existence. To me, this makes more sense. If God is asking who’s on the nice list for paradise, would he not chose those who have shown that they are striving to make the world a better place, flawed as they are? Presented with someone who has dedicated their life to the service of others, as Jesus himself did, will God reject them simply because their cultural background prevented them from seeing Jesus as anything particularly special? That doesn’t seem like the Just and Loving God that Christians profess to believe in.
I can see Christians jumping to their feet to claim that I am arguing for “salvation by works,” but that, too, is false. It is ridiculous to believe that one could earn their way to heaven. Honestly, what mortal could truly impress a deity? Like Kant says, what matters is the intent, that the person is trying to follow the right path, not how well they succeed. If learning about the life of Jesus helps one to live a better life, more power to them. However, they should not fall prey to the idea that following him in name is a requirement.
God's way is the right way because if he exists, he exists outside the world and can see the shape of things. God's way is the right way because that is the way the world is; therefore, you can find God's way by looking at the world – which is exactly what people did when they wrote religious books. The things they say are correct because you can see them reflected in the way the world is.
Things in the Bible are right only so far as they reflect the way things are; the way things are is not wrong because the Bible says so. But people mix in culture, interpretation, mistranslation, mispunctuation, and twenty thousand years of incomprehensible babble and claim that they need to change the world to fit the pattern they've constructed for themselves. You need to strip all of that away, look at the world, and try to find the correct path – "God's path," if you will – for yourself.
This not in the sense of "I do what I want"; rather, this way is the most difficult way of all, because you have to actually use your brain. You can't just read a cookbook and mindlessly believe what it says, so you spend your whole life trying to follow and refine your understanding of the correct path, because that's the best you can do. It was the best you could do before anyway, but at least now you know why the heck you're doing what you're doing. If God is indeed just, he will reward those who have spent their life searching for and attempting to live in the best way, which is the correct way, which is God's way.
If you haven’t already, check out AmericansElect. We are going to have a third candidate next fall, and regardless of who I end up voting for, that is going to be amazing.
After seeing the xkcd comic about Fitocracy, I scoured the internet for invitations and was thrilled when I finally found one. Now that I’ve been using the site for a month or two, some of my enthusiasm has waned. The concept is excellent: Turning fitness into an RPG-style game is a brilliant idea, tapping into my inherent desire to earn XP and level up.
I have some minor gripes with the service that are understandable given that it is still in beta, like non-collapsable comments and props and non-removable updates from the Fitocracy team on my homepage. What troubles me are some issues that are more deeply rooted: I am unable to track my fitness progress over time, and I’ve found that the actual act of using the service has become somewhat of a chore, such that I find myself saving up multiple workout days and entering them all at once in a batch at a later date.
I’m not sure why the timeline only goes back three days. Maybe they don’t have the ability to store or process more data than that currently. Regardless, it’s frustrating as a user, because I would like to see a history of my workouts and exercises to see how I have progressed. The “personal best” stars and per-exercise history is nice, but not particularly useful. I’d like to be able to chart a specific exercise over time, as well as see a list of all the exercises that I have logged in the past.
Perhaps more importantly, looking up and entering each exercise is a major pain, one that has discouraged all of the people I invited to the service from continuing to use it. The frequently used exercises is not particularly accurate or useful – I’d rather be able to see a list of everything I have used in the past. Saving workouts doesn’t help me. I would imagine that it’s nice if you’ve got a regular plan, but I tend to have a general idea of what I want to do on a given day and attempt to accomplish it, varying the specific exercises I do based on what is available and how crowded the area is.
Instead, I’ve taken to using Evernote to jot down the exercises I perform in “Fitocracy lingo” while I’m at the gym. Later when I’m batch entering the multiple days, I’ll look up each exercise again and again by typing unique parts of the name for it in the search box. Perhaps there could be a manually managed “favorites” list that I could curate on my own and draw from to make this process easier. I’ve noticed they’re working on developing an app, which I’m sure will also help with mid-workout entry, although sadly it appears that they’re starting with iOS.
Fitocracy is a great idea, but right now it seems to have a hard time holding on to people who aren’t primed to enjoy it’s unique flavor. Progress tracking and a less painful way to log works could help retain and expand its userbase.
It’s not secret that Big Content is more than a little schizophrenic when it comes to technology, seeing death knells in the very disruptions that later become their lifeblood. In this vein, I saw the other day that Warner Brothers Australia has begun including shouts from Trakt users on their movie pages. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to see them making use of the service. It just amuses me, because using Trakt involves “scrobbling” the videos you watch, much as Last.fm does for music. It interfaces with software like XBMC that plays movies and TV shows stored as digital files.
Do you see the disconnect here? The information Warner Brothers is using to add value to their website is generated by people watching digital files – files that must be created by ripping a DVD you own, thus breaking the onerous DRM, or by downloading a rip made by someone else, usually shared through peer-to-peer software. This also takes place in Australia, the country where it is currently illegal to rip a CD you own to mp3.
Essentially, Warner Brothers is endorsing behavior they and their industry cronies have and continue to champion against, decrying it in all sorts of inflammatory language. Why? Because the people behind the website recognize correctly that it adds value to the content and simply makes sense, something most of us have inherently understood for years.
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- Came back from Oak Glen with some real apple cider. We'd been missing that bunches. #fb #autumn 2010-11-13
- Passed by the "Royal Trailer Park." Now if -that- isn't a contradiction in terms... #redlands 2010-11-12
- Lame: People who study in chapel. Text, play games on your phone, talk, but don't try to read your notes in the dark. #fb #school 2010-11-10
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Interesting Links
- Half-Life: Origins (Live Action)
- One Year in Washington
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- The Price of Plutocracy
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Listening To...
- Acid House Kings - A Long Term Plan
- Acid House Kings - Will You Love Me In The Morning?
- Acid House Kings - Sleeping
- Acid House Kings - Saturday Train
- Acid House Kings - Tonight Is Forever
- Acid House Kings - I Write Summer Songs For No Reason
- Acid House Kings - 7 Days
- Acid House Kings - London School Of Economics
- Acid House Kings - A Long Term Plan
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Bookshelf
Malcolm Gladwell -
Blink
Patrick Rothfuss -
The Wise Man's Fear (Kingkiller Chronicle, #2)
Jodi Picoult -
My Sister's Keeper
Rudy Rucker -
Postsingular
J.D. Robb -
J.D. Robb In Death: The First Cases (In Death #1 & 2)
mistypedURL by Michael Castello is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.