Gospel and the reference point

If wisdom, which is perfected in the gospel, is to have any impact in the world, it must be seen as the implication of that gospel. Far from removing the wisdom literature of the Old Testament from the concern of Christians, the gospel completes and interprets it. With the total perspective of Old and New Testaments we have the basis for understanding the fear of the Lord and how it brings us to a comprehensive view of reality. The nature of the unity of all things and the proper distinction between them are obscured once we have rejected the ultimate points of reference. The Christian mind begins with the being of God as Trinity. It is not just vaguely theistic in some unspecified way. To say, 'I believe in God' is not good enough unless it is the God of the Bible we are referring to. The secular mind has rejected this most significant reference point and has consequently cast a cloud of ignorance and folly over every area of its knowledge. Humanism defeats its own goal of the good of man. It cannot know what is the ultimate good of man since it has rejected the possibility of the God of the Bible existing. New gods have taken the place of the true God, and technology has been turned into a particularly tenacious twentieth-century idol. It is a very powerful god since it is the diversion of something that was at the centre of God's purposes for good.
-pp.547 Gospel and Wisdom (Goldsworthy Trilogy)

You can get your copy of Goldsworthy Trilogy from Koorong, Bookdepository, or Amazon.

Science and Christian faith

It was hard, but finished reading Gospel and Wisdom. I'll be posting a couple of quotes from the ending part of the book.

Because science and technology are expressions of the cultural mandate they must be affirmed and welcomed by Christians. Indeed, the Christian view of man and creation provides the scientist and technologist with a perspective of their pursuits which not only made them possible, but which should have prevented them from creating the monster. When the cultural mandate is accepted on the basis of revelation, the proper distinctions between God, man (scientists) and the world can be maintained. But when it ceases to be seen as mandate, that is, as task authorized by a superior it comes to be regarded as the natural extension of the autonomous man. Removed from its benign relationship to the order of the universe, it is adopted as the power base for all kinds of domination. The domination of man was intended to reflect the gracious shepherd rule of God, but it became corrupted into self-seeking power play. Wisdom urges us to go on struggling to translate the fear of the Lord as the beginning of the knowledge into the means of living by faith in the world. Its base in the doctrine of creation, and its emphasis on the practicalities of life here and now, provide a check against the wrongful use of an orientation towards the future life to our responsibilities in the present. Wisdom reminds us that the resurrection life will be reached by means of our pilgrimage through this life in this world.

- pp546-547 Gospel and Wisdom (Goldsworthy Trilogy)

Problems at Google?

Ok, it's really late night here in Sydney (or early, depending on how you look at it), but here's something strange I noticed.
When I search for anything on google, every link it shows comes up with a threat warning. Like below:
When I try to go to the link, it displays a warning page, then, when I try to look at the actual threat diagnostic page, it shows there's a server error.
A server error at Google?!

I've got a couple of theory.
1) A simple one. A human mistake, or error in judgement. Engineers at Google failed to keep the diagnostic servers up, or the search result displaying servers have failed for some human mistakes.
2) Google is being attacked by crackers. They don't like Google's threat analysis, and have succeeded in executing a DoS (Denial of Service) attack.

Hmm... I wonder how long it's going to take Google to fix this issue. I bet they'd be pretty quick!

(Update: Gee, looks like they've already fixed it, while I was writing up this post!)

(Update 2: Ars reports the Google glitch.)

Star Wars in text (ascii for those geeks)

Oh, wow, ascii-fied Star Wars.

Facebook app: Graffiti

I don't know if you have used the Facebook app, Graffiti, but I quite like it. These days I don't have time to play with it unfortunately, but basically, it's a very simple drawing tool. It distinguishes itself from other drawing tools by not allowing "erase" function. You can only paint over what is already drawn (just like graffiti'ing on a wall with an air brush), although you can "undo" your last action.
Some people are so talented, or simply have too much time on their hands.

Dr. Richard Hipp, the creator of SQLite honours God

I didn't know who Dr. Richard Hipp was, but I heard of the SQLite. According to this article, it is the most deployed database system in the world. It powers your iPods, iPhones, and browsers like Firefox, and more. Dr. Richard Hipp is the man who created the SQLite and he gave it away to the public. That's very geeky coolness. And he is a Christian, and from what I read in the article, he is a real, God honouring Christian, not just a "pick-Christianity-as-my-religion-on-survey" kind of Christian. Here's how he answered the question: "Do you ascribe your talents and skills as God given or human made?"

Everything that I am is by Grace alone. The longer I live and the more I see, the more obvious this fact becomes. There have been many times in the past (and, no doubt, there will be more occasions in the future) where I have looked upon "my" accomplishments with pride, thinking that "I" have done well. Such thinking is utter foolishness. I would be less than nothing but for the unmerited favour of God.

Great answer, Dr. Hipp, praise God!

(HT: Tim Challies)

Try Wordle

Wordle, a free "word-cloud" making tool even made to TED website now. I couldn't resist but try it myself.

Here's what I got with my sermon at the High School Ministry at church on Luke 19:1-10.


(Click for a bigger view)

Introducing SlideRocket

This post isn't a typical one you'll see here, but I just discovered this new web tool that looks really good and promising to be useful. It's called SlideRocket. It's a web based presentation tool, just like MS PowerPoint or Keynote for Mac, but promises more than that. From their website:

SlideRocket is a web application that provides everything you need to design professional quality presentations, manage and share libraries of slides and assets, and to deliver presentations in person or remotely over the web.

I've played around with it for only few minutes, but it looked fantastic! Just using one of the default themes, I could create a presentation that looks much more professional and beautiful than when I used, let's say, a MS PowerPoint. It seems to be very feature-rich, yet intuitively designed as well so that it is easy to learn and use. When I need to prepare a presentation for my church activities (or else), I am going to try this one out for sure.

If you want to try it for yourself, you will need to request for an account since it isn't fully released yet, but in a private beta phase.

Having fun with new Facebook feature, Lexicon

Facebook launched a feature called Lexicon.
What it does is that given a term (or more separated by commas), it shows a graph of how many of the Facebook users used that given term each day over a period of time.
I played with it for few minutes yesterday and found something interesting.
When I searched for 'yes' and 'no', it gave me the following result.


The graph shows that far more people used 'no' than 'yes'. Does this mean that we are more negative than positive? Or does it mean we are simply more expressive about something negative?

Just a random thought I had which is statistically, socially, scientifically imprecise.

Some other interesting searches:
- God, Jesus (Lexicon is case-insensitive): See the crazy spike around Christmas, and a moderate, but still significant one around the Easter.
- love, hate: I guess a lot of people are saying something like, "No, I love you!" than "Yes, I hate you!" ;-) Also, notice the spike around Christmas and Valentine's Day.
- Obama, Clinton, McCain: I'm not that into politics, I just hear a lot about it these days.

An old news about web security

This is such an old news, I'm wondering how this made the news. But then, I guess it could be helpful to remind those of us who work as web designers/programmers once in a while.

Bits and pieces - 22-Mar-2008

• Six Characteristics to Look for in a Seminary - For me, the punch line was: "Are they Gospel focused or issue focused?" I suppose that applies to all of us as Christians, not just seminaries.
• Apple used to look so tasty and tempting, but it seems it's getting sour and even rotten. - "Downloading software has to be opt-in, not opt-out!" Come on, Jobs, you can do better than this!
• How to engage with a Roman Catholic - Arguments, even if you win it, won't result in conversion, but we mustn't shy away from engaging them either. Here's something you should remember when you do.

Bits and pieces - 19-Mar-2008

• Jesus as a failed leader - reconsidering our urge to make Jesus as a model for leadership.
• Arthur C. Clarke died today
• A.viary - If you are into design, especially web-related, you should check this out. An online design tools on offer. But even for just a look at their website sure will inspire you.

Google Reader Search Plugin for Firefox

Ok, another technical post, so those not interested can move right along. ;-)

A few days ago, I started learning about Search Engine plugin for Firefox as I was exploring ideas for searching functionality in a project I'm working on. Filled with curiosity,
I couldn't resist but look up the relevant documentation and build one myself.
It turns out, it is really easy (well, ok, relatively speaking, of course!) to build my own search engine.

The following is what I did to build a Google Reader search engine, but first, pre-requisites:
1) Need some understanding of HTML and Javascript. (minimal)
2) Need a web server (eg. Apache Httpd which I used).
3) Used the Firefox web browser before (Internet Explorer 7 should also work very similarly, but I have not tried it myself. If you feel brave, do try it yourself, and let me know how you went.)
4) A Google Reader Account (without this, you won't be able to use the search engine you'll have created by the end of this errr.. humble tutorial.)

To build Google Reader Search plugin:
1) Create a file named installer.html and save to a folder under web server's document root (eg. in my case, I saved it as: C:\servers\Apache2.2.6\htdocs\installer.html).
installer.html:

<html>
<head><title>Install a custom search engine</title></head>
<body>
<a href="#" onClick="window.external
.AddSearchProvider('http://localhost/googleReaderSearch.xml')">
Install Google Reader SearchEngine</a>
</body>
</html>

The key here is of course that one liner: onClick="window.external.AddSearchProvider('http://localhost/googleReaderSearch.xml')"
That will cause Firefox to install the search engine when you click on the link.

2) Create googleReaderSearch.xml which is essentially a description file that tells the Firefox what to do.

Save it in document root of your web server next to your installer.html.
googleReaderSearch.xml:

<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/"
xmlns:moz="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/">
<ShortName>Google Reader</ShortName>
<Description>Search for items in your Google Reader</Description>
<Tags>internet web search rss atom reader google</Tags>
<Image height="16" width="16" type="image/x-icon">http://www.google.com/reader/ui/favicon.ico</Image>
<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://www.google.com/reader/view/#search/{searchTerms}/"/>
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
<AdultContent>false</AdultContent>
</OpenSearchDescription>

3) Start up your web server if it's not running already, and browse to http://localhost/installer.html

4) Click on the link and install it. That's it!

Of course, the meaty part is the step 2.

I was actually going to upload to Mozilla site if it wasn't available, but it was already there.

references:
a) Creating OpenSearch Plugins for Firefox
b) OpenSearch.org

Update (24-Feb-2008): Added some links which should've been included in the first place.

Format and reinstall, failed...

oh dang.
Stayed up past 4:00AM. Formatting and reinstalling Windows Vista and Ubuntu Linux (7.10) took much longer than I expected. Worst part of all is that some of my laptop's functions aren't working as well as before, eg. wireless switch, media buttons, etc. I'm going to try again tonight, and that may mean that I wipe out the whole HD and start all over again.

So I decided to go and format my laptop

It's been overdue. I was meant to do it as soon as I got my new laptop months ago, but I never got around to do it. I was not used to laptop at first and was afraid of stuffing up the install process by forgetting something.

But now I think I'm ready to take a risk. The Dell's pre-configured settings are making me waste too much space and time.

Anyways, I'm using my desktop computer at the moment which is running on Ubuntu 7.10. I'm going to install Ubuntu on my laptop as well as Vista though so I can do some development work on it a bit easier. Provided everything goes well, I should be done by... hmm... 1:00AM? Doh!

Links to share - 13-Feb-2008

• I'd never swim there, even if I could swim that is...
• 12th of Feb was Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Read about him and his God.
• For those of us who are technically minded (or even those economically minded too), the security expert, Bruce Schneier comments on "Lock-in" effects/strategies used by many companies.

A modern day Da Vinci?

Nah... he doesn't seem crazy enough to be compared to Leonardo Da Vinci. But his inventions reminded me of him so much.
Here's an ad featuring him and his "creatures":


At first I thought it was all done by computer graphics, but then, I listened to his talk.

My thoughts?
It really blew my mind at first. I never thought this kind of mechanical moving structure that does not rely on human intervention was possible.
And then, I sensed somewhat eerie feeling about these creatures, as I started imagining a world where these mindless creatures roam all over the places.
Another thing that came to my mind was Magic: The Gathering, the card game, in which various mechanical artifacts feature. You don't know what they are? urm... never mind...

Vista Service Pack 1 arriving soon

Arstechnica reports:

[Windows Vista Service Pack 1] will address many of the issues bugging users since the release of Vista. Microsoft says it includes more than 300 hot fixes covering everything from data protection to video performance. In particular, copying and moving files should be up to 50 percent faster, and waking a Vista PC from sleep should be much faster.

Up to 50% faster copying and moving files? I thought it would improve more than that. To think that I'll still be waiting for more than 5 minutes copying ~200Mb of files... hmmm...
Aye, how easy it is to complain and blame than to count the blessings and thank God, perhaps, especially when it comes to technology.

Universcale

Oh, this was cool. Could be useful as an educational tool for young ones.

A cheap "I love you"

I got a new phone a few days ago for free by re-committing to a two year contract with Optus. Nokia 6500 Slide
I was just exploring functions on it, and one of them was text message templates. You can write a message and save it as a template, so you can use them to quickly send a short message.

Here are some of default pre-written templates:

• I am late. I will be there at
• I'm in a meeting, call me later at
• I'm busy right now. I'll call you later.
• I will be arriving at
• Meeting is cancelled.
• See you in

These seemed to come in handy when I feel really lazy to write it myself. I don't know if I'll actually use them much though because I won't remember they exist most of the time.

But this one template will never leave my mind.
I love you too
Shock and horror!!!
I really don't think I'll ever use it, God forbid!
If I were too busy to write those four words myself, then I'm way too busy to live humanly. If I were to use that because I couldn't be bothered typing that myself, I am definitely using those four words inappropriately, without really meaning it, cheapening the word, "love". Even if I broke my fingers, I hope I'd write those four words myself than to resort to the cheaper version of it.

Seriously, would you use it?