Oh, I responded to that cult kid. We'll see what he writes back... whether it'll be intelligent or whether it'll be irrational "We are not a cult, so there." Here's a sample from my response:

"Keep in mind that any time a theology makes one individual verse (Matthew
28:19) so central in its thinking, it's a sign of a problem. The Bible gives
a consistent witness throughout the Old and New Testaments, and your
practice of "discipling" is not a Biblical one. Not that "being a disciple
of Jesus" isn't a Biblical concept, but the manner and structure in which
your church enforces it is unbiblical."

"P.S. I found the following two sites especially interesting when learning
about the ICC."
http://www.reveal.org/ and
http://www.rightcyberup.org/ <-- has an amazing amount of material

Update... weird, I just got a response back from him, and he didn't mention my comments at all. But he wants to meet again, which is great, since we'll get to talk about this stuff.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1684

23:13 (utc-5)
edited: 23:25 (utc-5)

 

I just went and shot real guns tonight for the first time. My dad and I went to The Firing Line in Pearl River, NY. We've also both decided to get ourselves registered for gun licenses here in NJ... rather than have to wait if we decide we want a gun we figured we'll just do it now while I happen to be on vacation. Since we didn't shoot big guns like .45s (we shot a .22 rifle and a .22 handgun with a 6in barrel), the guns felt surprisingly more like BB guns than I expected them to.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1683

23:10 (utc-5)

 

I think I've gone and switched to Mozilla 0.9.9 for all of my browsing (except when I need flash), finally. I find that I go to it now instead of Internet Explorer... not because it's non-Microsoft but because I like it better. Can't wait to see how much they can improve it before 1.0. Now I just wish they would allow me to make CTRL-click open a link in a new window even while I have tabbed-browsing turned on.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1682

23:04 (utc-5)

 

Parrot 0.0.4 has been released. Lots of neat new features. Good stuff.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1681

23:02 (utc-5)

 

Via LtU, Foundations of Object-Oriented Programming Languages: Types and Semantics. Looks like an interesting book. I've really been wanting to read something on the more theoretical aspects of Object Oriented programming, and this looks like it may be it. I read Object Oriented Software Construction, by Bertrand Meyer a few years ago, but I don't remember that going into much theory... it was more of an introduction to OO (even though it was like 1200 pages). Although my memory could be totally wrong... I have to revisit that book

Permalink | 3 Comments | id 1680

15:40 (utc-5)

 

NY Daily News: Robin Williams, Evildoer "Actor relishes dark new roles, but says nice guy will return"

"It's not a midlife crisis. I had mine when I was 30," says the 49-year-old actor. "I wanted to expand my range so I could get different types of scripts, not, 'Hey, he's a nice, sweet man.'"

His younger son, Cody, 10, prefers him sweet... "He's my conscience. Sometimes I listen. When he really laughs, he goes big. A kid's laugh is so much better than Prozac."

Permalink | Comments? | id 1679

15:04 (utc-5)

 

Via LtU, JavaZone: Why I Don't Read Code Comments, by Dr. Heinz Kabutz. "I don't like comments. They are often so useless that I usually don't read them. Ever since my older brother caught me typing REM statements into a program as a child and then broke the news to me that they did absolutely nothing, I've developed a keen distrust of comments. This opinion only solidified when I pursued my computer science degree. I realized that my classmates and I wrote comments only to earn good marks from mean-spirited instructors who were more concerned with whether our code was commented than whether it worked correctly! Simply put, I felt that comments were a waste of time."

Funny and short article. Obviously we need comments, but the most useful thing he has to tell you is to make your code more descriptive. For instance, if the paramater to getName() was "component_index" instead of "idx", it might have been a little clearer. It was already pretty clear, but that's just an example. Always use long names where it makes sense, and feel free to use underscores_in_your_variable_names. LtU also has a good discussion on comments worth checking out.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1678

14:54 (utc-5)
edited: 14:56 (utc-5)

 

I had a dream I could fly, but not only that, it was around a new version of a Super Mario Brother's game! That doesn't give quite the right picture... don't think SMB for Nintendo. It was much darker (most of the dream seemed to be at night), and as I was flying once I got to feel the grout between stone-like tiles on the ground. It was cool. The main problem was that I couldn't keep my legs up straight while I flew. It's like when you're swimming... if you don't go fast enough, you have to struggle to keep your legs fully behind you. The other weird thing was that it wasn't like I was flying under my own power... while I could control it to some degree, I didn't feel like I had the control I wanted to... the power was sort of "borrowed" from something else that let me use it, and had to implicitly grant me the power whenever I wanted to use it. And I was scared to go too high because I'd fall if the one granting me the power pulled the plug.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1677

14:53 (utc-5)

 

Check it out! The second season of Buffy is coming out on DVD June 11th!

Permalink | Comments? | id 1676

02:44 (utc-5)