04 Feb
Ugh … I can’t even begin to tell you how much of a headache I’ve caused myself with my blog. I just can’t leave things well enough alone – I just constantly tinker with plugin code, trying to force every square peg into the round socket I’ve decided it simply MUST fit into. This, of course, undoubtedly ends up having strange things happen from time to time. Considering the low traffic my site gets, it’s not *that* big of a deal since I’m usually able to fix things before too many people see the site in a screwed up state.
Oh well. I’m sure none of you mind the occasional hiccup, right? 
If you see something truly outlandish though, please let me know so I can try to get it fixed! 
03 Feb
A post was made on the Adventist Today website called, 1844 and Me. An interesting personal reflection on the Great Disappointment, and what it means to the author, David Hamstra. He encouraged others to post their own personal reflections on the topic, and I’ve decided to take up that challenge – or, at the very least, explore my own feelings on the topic through a loose analysis of his article.
William Miller
Like Hamstra, indeed, like all Adventists, I was taught that 1844 was a year of great cosmic importance (as Hamstra puts it). The story of William Miller’s journey to 1844 is quite an interesting one. Don’t get me wrong, he is no saint of the church. As a matter of fact, outside of learning Adventist History, or discussions/sermons on 1844 and the Great Disappointment, Miller is hardly mentioned at all, but his determination to hear God’s voice through the bible, without the filter of any particular denomination’s interpretation, is admirable, even today. And it was through this dedicated study that he began to put the pieces together that would lead him to his 1843/1844 conclusions.
Chart illustrating the calculations to 1843
There is a very interesting (if somewhat confusing and unreadable) chart that he used to demonstrate his calculations. At some point I actually managed to get my hands on a reproduction print of this poster, and just found an image of it on the interwebs.
I have never quite understood why, with direct biblical commentary such as Mark 13:32, people throughout history have insisted on trying to divine the exact time of Christ’s return. I mean, I understand the desire to know, and the longing to know, but having already been told that no one but the Father knows, why would you begin to think that it was calculable?
I suppose there is some sympathetic understanding to be awarded, given the situation. Miller got very wrapped up in the prophesies of Daniel and Revelation (who hasn’t? [no sarcasm]). When you start with Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, as told in Daniel 2, you have the starting point for all future prophetic time lines – The Gold Head which represented the Babylonian Empire. From there, you just work your way out, using the rest of the statue, and the 70-week and 2300 day prophecies as guideposts. Eventually, Miller arrived at a set of dates, but had no idea what it meant beyond the somewhat cryptic prophetic statement, “then shall the sanctuary be cleansed” (Daniel 8:14). Miller originally attributed the Earth as the sanctuary, and came to the conclusion that to cleanse the sanctuary would mean the Second Coming.
After the Great Disappointment, three major factions splintered from the Millerites. One of these factions, which would later give birth to the Seventh-Day Adventist denomination, held that the sanctuary to be cleansed was not the earth, but rather the Heavenly Sanctuary, which has been Shadowed by the earthly sanctuary, as outlined in Exodus 25.
In this way, we come to our 1844 dilemma – as Hamstra put it:
the last 165 years we have been living in the last of the last days. But those 165 years have not been kind to 1844. The fact that they exist has leached 1844 of its apocalyptic power to motivate piety. (Will it take another 165 before Jesus comes?) And that delay has allowed us to question the cosmic significance of the date itself. (How can we know that a prophecy has been fulfilled in Heaven? At least Miller’s prediction was falsifiable.)
Hamstra encourages persona reflection – not on whether to ignore the topic or not, but rather on how we make sense of it. We claim that 1844 marks the beginning of the end … but what does that mean to you as an individual child of God?
I admit, I haven’t really given the topic much thought. Reading Hamstra’s view, however, made me sympathetic to his views. Scripture always builds on itself, and if there’s a Shadow on earth, than the heavenly version follows that pattern as well. Salvation is no different. 1844 reinforces this, and reminds us that Christ continues to petition on our behalf. 1844 also serves as a common marker for both earthly history and heavenly history – a shared bond, to reassure the lost children of God that our experiences here on earth are still directly tied to rest of creation; we are an integral part of a grander, cosmic story – a connection that can so easily be overlooked or forgotten.
But, as we look back on the Cross with bitter-sweet tears – joy and awe at the sacrifice of the Son of God, mixed with the pain and grief at the folly of humans which necessitated it – so too should we reflect on 1844; not with the hubris of, “we are the remnant,” but with the humility of our own situation and God’s constant struggle to lead us out of darkness when we are so willing to remain there.
Just as the disciples of Christ wept because they misunderstood the prophecies of Christ’s mission, so too did the Millerites weep at their misunderstanding of 1844. Humans screw up. And God, in His infinite love and mercy, works with that. He works with the 1844s of our lives, never stopping His attempts to bring us home.
This is what 1844 means to me.
02 Feb
I have to admit, I’m a little ashamed at myself for not making this connection on my own. I’ve known about the work on HTML5 for a while now, and have been very excited about it, so I’m not sure why (besides being blinded by my overall disapproval of Apple Computer, Inc.) I didn’t see how their failure to include Flash compatibility in these hand-held iProducts wasn’t *as* debilitating as the knee-jerk reaction would lead one to believe.
Before I go into why I feel that way, let me first point out this doesn’t change the fact that these products fail to conform to *current* standards of expected functionality and web interoperability, and that this limitation was intentional on the part of the developers.
iPad Demonstration - Flash Snafoo
Does that prohibit the iPhone from being a great product? No, not at all. *I* have one, for goodness sake. It’s a great phone and app engine, sure. But to tout it as, “the most advanced web browser ever on a mobile phone” that lets you “the real web — not a stripped-down mobile version” (source) is just plain hogwash; removing all Flash content from the web is not what I would call “the real web.” Shoot, even in his unveiling presentation, Steve Jobs ran into the “there’s flash here, but I’m not going to show it to you” box. Flash has it’s downsides, sure, but right now it’s everywhere. It’s the standard for video, advertising, and casual web-based gaming. Not supporting it is a shot in the foot.
Okay,now, having said all that… We come back to HTML5. The next version of the web authoring standard is going to have built in support for all kinds of media encoding – including video. Not only that, but Apple happens to be part of the group that holds the patients on this new, built in, encoding (source). Seems they might be holding out for that to become a new standard .. which it inevitably will, since it will become part of HTML itself, rather than a plugged-in extension. YouTube and Vimeo have been testing out the new video tags for HTML5, hopefully in an effort to work out any bugs before the proposed standard receives final approval. Once that happens, Apple’s hand-held iProducts will be in a much better position than they are today. Seeing as Apple’s David Hyatt is one of the editors of the HTML5 docs, I’m sure this has been a calculated move on Apple’s part.
The two biggest issues that are left then, with regards to Flash support, are online advertising, and browser games. These two are heavily dependent on Flash support, and so far there has been little to suggest any of the new HTML5 tags will be of use to them. If casual gaming sites, and online marketing companies want to cater to the hand-held iProduct market, they will have to come up with something, and quickly… “lack of Flash support” is a major sticking point for a number of tech-minded people, but once HTML5 rolls out, that will be less and less of an issue.
01 Feb
For a while now I’ve been trying to find the magic-bullet in Social Networking: how to combine all my different feeds into a coherent whole, while maintaining individual usability. What do I mean by “individual usability?” Not all networks are created equal – they each have their target audience, as well as their target “feel” for how they present information – or even what information they focus on. There is much overlap, I know, but I feel it is also important to maintain these differences as well, as they are what help separate some services from one another.
For example: Facebook and Twitter are not the same thing; they focus on different aspects of their users lives; they had different target audiences to begin with (though I am willing to admit, evolution and popularity have merged what once was separate, to a great extent). Because of this, it is not only inappropriate to use them the same way, but down right insulting. Are there times when your Facebook status is going to be the same as your latest tweet? Sure, of course… but does that mean it should *always* be the same? No. Linking your Twitter account directly to your Facebook account, so that every tweet becomes your Facebook status, is not only a misuse of the two services, but also information overload for people who don’t care.
This is how I view some of the services available. I’m sure others will disagree with me, but … here ya go:
Services like Twitter, Identi.ca, Plurk, and YouAre: Life Streaming – that is, a round by round answer to the question, “what are you doing / What’s going on right now?”
Services like Facebook, Tumblr, and LiveJournal: Life Highlighting – that is, general overviews, points of interest, Micro-blogging, or virtual scrapbooking.
Services like BrightKite, Foursquare, Gowalla: Life Tracking – that is, answering the question of, “where are you, where have you been, and what do you think about those places?” There is some overlap here with Life Highlighting, and even Life Streaming of course, but generally one way: Life Tracking moves into the others, but rarely do the others move into Life Tracking.
Services like Plaxo and LinkedIn: Contact Manipulation – that is, work and/or personal contact listing. I’m not sure why either of these even offer the streaming of anything else (such as Twitter or Facebook feeds) as it seems, to me, to be highly inappropriate.
This is not a comprehensive list of course, just a random sampling of some of the services I use. When I use Ping.fm to send updates, everything in Life Streaming generally all gets the same information. Even though I put Facebook and Tumblr in the same category, I separate out micro-blogging from scrapbooking. Facebook will post news of what I post in Tumblr, as a scrapbook entry, but then you go to Tumblr to actually read the post.
I dunno… maybe I’m over-thinking everything, or just making a big deal out of nothing.
Maybe I should prune this all back to just two or three services and leave it at that.
Perhaps I should just mind my own business and let people use different services however they want to – in what ever way works for them. Those of you who know me, however, will know I just can’t do that … as a judgmental absolutist, for any given “thing” there is a “correct way” to do it (real or imagined .. and I’m quite willing to admit, sometimes it’s more of the latter than the former).
25 Jan
I’m not sure why, but I seems to be obsessed with the distribution of my gaming habits. I believe this might tie into my obsession with needing to be in-touch with the world as much as possible – an obsession which I admit is slightly counter to my, more general, anti-social nature. I dunno.. I’m just complex that way ;P
Anywho.. My obsession with the proliferation of my gaming-data started with the discovery the Steam distribution system for video games, developed by Valve Software. It was back when the Orange Box first came out, and I created my Steam profile in order to use their distribution method to get it (rather than buy a physical box). I decided to do that, in large part, thanks to comments made by my friend, Brian. He extolled the virtues of Steam, and I drank the Kool-Aid quite willingly.
Steam tracks your progress in games you download through it, and keeps statistics on time played, achievements earned, which games you play most often… all that good stuff. It also lets you see what Steam games your friends are playing, and lets you quickly and easily join games with your friends. It’s fantastic. I genearlly keep my steam friends list up all day while at work so I can schedule lunch-time games of L4D (1 or 2) or TF2. At this point, when I want to buy a new game, I always check Steam first to see if it’s available through them.
Next came my discovery of XFire. This is another game-tracking application, but it has the added benefit of in-game text chat, voice chat, video, and screen shots. Video and screen shots are automatically uploaded to your profile, so they are available for your friends to see without you having to do anything extra. The voice-chat is particularly helpful for games that don’t offer native voice chat, and it doesn’t require all the hoops you would have to jump through for Vent or Team Speak – most importantly, you can create a voice chat session on the fly. It’s really pretty awesome.
My next layer of obsession came in the form of Raptr – another monitoring application. It is very similar to XFire, but does have a few unique features which help it stand out: Not only does it track gameplay statistics like xfire, it also tracks your achievements, like Steam. Additionally, it hooks in very well with Facebook using the raptr application, something xfire and steam haven’t really done so far.
Bringing it all together, is my GamerDNA profile. Unlike the others, this isn’t an application that runs on my machine. GamerDNA hooks into all those other applications to gather gaming metrics. It uses this data to generate some interesting statistics on game play. It also keeps a record of your overall gameplay activities, including when you play a game for the very first time. I like this site, as it aggregates all this information and lets me generate interesting statistics from it 
