What I'm Doing

Monday, April 30, 2007

Global Climate Change

I came across a couple articles today on (cue movie-trailer voice) "Global Climate Change" (bum bum bum...) that were interesting. The first, from an Australian news source, is headlined, Ocean currents to blame for global warming: expert, and begins with this sentence:
The United States' leading hurricane forecaster says global ocean currents, not human-produced carbon dioxide, are responsible for global warming.
The second article, from the British edition of Times Online, is titled Climate change hits Mars. I found this part particularly interesting:
Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.
Just a couple tidbits you probably won't be hearing from Al Gore anytime soon.

Now, just to head off any criticism (i.e., I'm pretending I actually have an audience that might criticize me), I'm all for being more environmentally responsible. I grew up in a family that turns the lights/TV off when they're not being used, that recycles, that turns off the water when it's not needed, etc. As a Christian, I believe that God has tasked us with caring for the Earth that He has given us.

I just find the doomsday scenarios one hears from such public figures as the previously-mentioned Al Gore to be rather doubtful, and am somewhat incredulous regarding claims that human activity is to blame.

It is my, albeit uneducated, opinion that climate change is a natural phenomenon, and is merely part of the life-cycle of our planet. Frankly, "Global Warming" is such a politicized issue that it is hard for me to accept the rather one-sided presentation that is often given in the media.

Part of my issue with the alarmist aspect is that, if successful, it may lead to efforts being pushed through to "reduce carbon footprints," etc. before they've been well considered.

Take ethanol, for instance. It has been pushed as a "clean" fuel; instead of fossil fuels, ethanol is made from corn. At the outset, this seems like a great idea: a renewable energy resource. Except that, as ethanol use increases, corn which could have been food for people or livestock gets bought up by ethanol companies. As a result, the price of corn rises, the price of livestock rises, and we end up with a clean energy source that literally starves the poor.

In other words, it's a case of the butterfly flapping it's wings in Beijing and causing a hurricane in San Francisco.

Friday, April 20, 2007

My Soteriology

Christ did not come to get sinners into Heaven; He came to make sinners into saints.

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Feed Issues?

I was talking to Kristen earlier, and she said she hasn't gotten any new RSS data from this blog in Thunderbird since October, and that Thunderbird is giving her an error that the feed is not valid. She's using the feed URL provided in the first link under "Subscriptions" to the right, which is a feed produced by Feedburner. The benefit of Feedburner is, IIRC, that it can produce an RSS or Atom feed depending on what the user needs, which was why I decided to use it instead of Blogger's default Atom feed.

I decided to investigate for myself. When I click on the link in Firefox 2.0, it shows an up-to-date preview of the feed and allows me to choose how I want to subscribe (good old Firefox!). When I get to Bloglines, however, (Bloglines is my online feed reader of choice), and preview the feed from there, the most recent post is my March 28 announcement, Changes Coming Soon.

There is a link at the very bottom of my blog to Blogger's default Atom feed, and, when I try subscribing to that, it seems to work fine. I sent Kristen that URL, and she said it didn't show anything in Thunderbird, but it didn't complain that it wasn't a valid feed, either.

Has anyone else noticed any issues receiving feeds from this blog? I know a couple of you have signed up to use the FeedBlitz service to the right, to get this feed in email; have you noticed anything awry? The more info I have, the better, so let me know! I want to try and get this fixed soon.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

From Florida

I'm out in Florida on a business trip. This is a view from my balcony. Right now, I don't have Internet, so I'm posting from my phone. I wanted to say something about the shooting at VA Tech today.
God have mercy on all those involved, the victims, the families, and the man who was so disturbed as to commit this heinous act. May God have mercy on us all, for we are all part of this culture that produces such violence.

Friday, April 13, 2007

What Kristen and I Do On a Date

The writing is the algorithm we devised to find the nearest multiple of y to x. This started by my spilling the salt and saying, "Oh, no, 400 years of bad luck!" Kristen noted that bad luck usually comes in 7's, so we wanted to find the nearest multiple of 7 to 400.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Warm Weather Again

That's a view out the window of my office. The cold is leaving, and the skies are clear! At least, until this weekend.

Comment Spam

Since I've started this blog, I've noticed that the more often I update, the more often I get comment spam.

For those who don't know, comment spam is where people (or, usually, machines) post advertisements in your comments. Sometimes, they make a meager attempt at sounding like a real commenter. They'll say something like, "What an interesting post! By the way, buy my crap!" Sometimes, they don't even care to disguise themselves.

The other day, I got one that was more along the latter. It was a blatant advertisement for some webmail software. However, in the last line, the author was so nice about the fact that I'll probably delete the comment I almost felt bad deleting it!

Well, I've been able to keep that stuff out for the most part. I get an email every time I get a comment on the blog, so any spam is usually gone within a day. However, I tire of keeping up with that, so I've decided to add a "word verification" to the comment posting process.

All this means is that, when posting a comment, you'll be shown an image of some characters, and you have to type those characters in the corresponding text box to prove that you are a human and not some machine. Anonymous comments are still allowed, so the few of you who actually read this and don't have a Blogger account can still comment. You know, on the off-chance I post anything comment-worthy.

It's not a big deal, but it's a change I thought I'd let people know about.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Christ is Risen!

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!


That's the refrain that was sung multiple times in the services tonight.

Happy Pascha (Easter)!

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Holy Saturday

On my way to church for Holy Saturday morning. Tonight, we'll be in church from 9pm until 3am, celebrating Easter (Pascha) at midnight. Then, the Paschal feast!

White Easter?

This is a photo I took tonight of snow on my car. I had just gotten home, so there's not much there yet. However, this is snow, in Georgia, in April! What does this mean? Personally, I think Hell is starting to freeze over.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Free Admission Promotion at Theme Park Goes Awry

According to a local news station, a free admission promotion by the Six Flags Over Georgia theme park worked a little bit too well. The article is great, so go read it here. Anything else I can say here would probably only take away from the humor of this.

Update: My brother, apparently, tried to make it out to Six Flags for "Ditch Day" (that's what they were calling it). He left school around 4am, but, fortunately, before he got to the park, he got a call from a friend ahead of him telling him that they'd ended it early.