I-Phone?

What's an I-Phone?

Makes me wonder if Logos will be coming out with Mackintoodle PC software anytime soon.

It's amazing to me...

...just how many John Loftus posts boil down to "God isn't how I would expect him to be, therefore, he must not exist" (Most recently, here and here).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pete Sampras and Roger Federer say be thankful!

When the wife's away...

I was doing dishes tonight, and I discovered that I could do that thing with wine glasses. Needless to say, I wasted the next 45 minutes. Have a look!

Grammar Meme

With everyone off at SBL, carelessly having fun without me, I thought I would try to start a meme. What's your biggest grammar foible? For me, I always want to write "I wanted to try and start" rather than "I wanted to try to start." Gets me everytime.

How about Nick, Joel, Jim (if he can step away from all the fun), Mike and Rob (they can discuss theirs together), and Doug.

I'd love to make a submission, Doug...

But the month of November has not been my best. Perhaps someone else can help you out.

The worst thing about missing SBL...

...is probably experiencing for myself James Crossley's resemblance to eyeliner guy on LOST.

technology!

i just tweet-taunted my pastor about a win a macbook contest. 2009, everybody!

Depressing

Not only am I missing out on all the SBL 2009 fun, but I saw this time-lapse of U.S. unemployment. Not looking good.

[Via DF]

Tab Dump

This has been sitting in my tabs for the last couple days, amazing me every time I look at it. You remember those old Choose Your Own Adventure novels? Yeah, so did this guy, but he did something insanely cool with them.

[Via DF]

Why I Won't Be Going to ETS This Year

I forgot to buy a bathing suit.

I don't lecture with PowerPoint

I hate putting it together. I think it looks like crap. I find it undesirable as a teaching aid. This is just one more fantastic reason to skip the whole thing:

I’ve been a computer science professor for many years at a very good university, and in most of my classes I try to *only* use slides for images or diagrams that are so complicated or precise that I would not want to reproduce them by hand. Everything else is either me talking or writing on the whiteboard. Sometimes I have handwritten notes to remind me what topics I wanted to cover.

My students, for the most part, HATE this. It completely turns their expectations of a class upside down. After a few weeks, I start getting a deluge of “when are the slides going to be online” from the students who never attend class and don’t realize that there aren’t slides. Even students who *are* in class complain bitterly that they don’t have “anything to study from”. I’ve had students complain (in groups, sometimes with signed petitions) to my department chair and to my dean, saying that not providing slides creates (and I quote from one recent complaint) an “unreasonable expectation of attendance and/or note-taking”. I have fielded angry phone calls from PARENTS saying that their student isn’t doing well in my course because I’m not providing him/her with the “expected study aids.”

[Via Stephen Carlson's Twitter]

John Hannah

One of my regrets from my time at DTS is not having taken more classes with John Hannah. To see why, check out Justin Taylor's three questions, as well as some great quotes in the comments. Among them:

The first thing you owe to any person is understanding. After understanding, you owe them your compassion. Then, after understanding and compassion, you owe them criticism. Let your criticism be tempered by understanding and compassion.

[Via JD's twitter]

To the Anonymous Spammer Who's Been Hanging Out Here Lately

I don't know if you've noticed, but I moderate comments. That means when you submit what are obviously spam comments, they will not actually appear on the site. Therefore, all you're doing is wasting your time and annoying me. I would suggest you give it up.

"Faith exists in the absence of reason."

It's a shame that such an interesting confession begins with such an insipid sentiment.

I really need to unsubscribe from Debunking Christianity

'Cause every other day there's some ridiculous post I feel like I have to respond to. Today's follows up on a line John Loftus has been in love with lately: that Christianity reinvents itself for each new generation (and that this somehow discredits it). My favorite part is this: after "debunking" the notion that Christianity has any unity from 2 millenia ago until now, Loftus celebrates:

Let's have done then with this cockamamie notion that the church has survived our attacks.

I'd love to hear what rubric allows for an "our" in the case of Christianity's critics, but not in the case of the Church itself.

This won't mean anything to you...

But that blank space below the date...to me that means a whole day without anything scheduled. In other words, heaven.

I can't wait to find out what technology my kids use that corrupts their lives, unlike things in my day.

Albert Mohler, David Brooks, and Jeffrey Zaslow walked 30 miles through snow.

Randall Munroe has another ridiculously good idea

So annoying.

[Previously, See also Doug]

New BSC

Up at Paul of Tarsus.

old habits die hard

John Loftus passes the basket.

Stupid Ancient Greeks!

THIS is the world the ancient Greeks believed existed. Notice the geo-centrism! And I'm supposed to accept their philosophy? If the authors cannot get this right I have no reason to accept anything else they said just because they said it. Q.E.D. My claim is that there isn't anything in Greek philosophy worth listening to.

[inspiration]

It occurs to me...

...that without a deep and abiding understanding of mid-20th century show-tunes, most of my blog makes very little sense.

You say to-may-to, i say to-mah-to...

The ancient Hebrews did not have a modern, scientific understanding of the universe, ergo nothing they said has any validity! I'd love to see this applied across all disciplines.