August 2005 Archives

catapult magazine is mentioned in the September issue of The Banner, the magazine of the Christian Reformed Church. In each issue, they feature various resources in a "Tuned In" column; catapult is this month's featured website!

Special thanks to Kelly Crull for writing the very concise, accurate and appealing description of catapult.

I just wanted to publicly congratulate Wm. Anthony Connolly, one of our frequent catapult writers, on having the sixth best-selling trade paperback in Canada according to the bookseller McNally Robinson. As the bestseller lists will change, I will also link directly to his book, The Obituaries. Canadians have excellent taste, don't they?

Brother Roger, founder of the Taize Community in France, was murdered yesterday during an evening prayer service. I'm still reeling in disbelief ...

I've decided to start a semi-regular "column" on the blog called TechNotes. Very clever, eh? Essentially, I'm going to use the column to point to interesting technological developments as they apply me individually, the organizations we serve and the general technological milieu. All of which gives me a significant amount of leeway to discuss just about anything as long as it relates to technology.

And away I go ...

The new server

The biggest current development to speak of is our move to a new server. In fact, this is the first blog entry to be posted on our new space! The new server is far more affordable and offers more than 40 times more space. More, more, more for less. Makes you wonder why we didn't move earlier, doesn't it?

Well, to make the move all of our sites coded in ColdFusion needed to be re-written in PHP. I simply haven't had time or energy in the last two years to learn an entirely new language. And I still don't ...

Thankfully, my new friend James Stewart has graciously given many, many hours of his time to develop the new code for catapult, by far the most complicated site in the *cino family. He's also helped considerably on the server administration side of things, walking me through the process of database migration (among other things). James: thank you, thank you, thank you (again).

For the next several weeks, I suspect, we'll be working through the inevitable glitches. Thank you for your patience.

Mighty Mouse and Intel

My beloved Apple has made many strides in the past several weeks that may contribute to significant climate change in Hell.

First, they announced that they will be moving all of their computers to Intel processors over the next couple years. After years of trying to convince consumers that faster processor speed didn't necessarily mean a faster computer--which is generally true, to a point--Apple finally gave up on IBM and Motorola PowerPC chips. Every Mac will be shipping with "Intel inside" by the end of 2007.

I think this will be a great move for Apple in the long run. While I was initially skeptical (along with every other Mac user), I've been convinced that this will lead to some winsome developments. IBM and Motorola haven't been investing the kinds of resources in computer chips necessary for innovation; Intel only makes processors, making innovation essential for growth. It should be interesting to see what two highly innovative companies can come up with. And because I don't plan on upgrading my machine for the next several years, my next Mac will be an Intel machine.

Second, Apple introduced the Mighty Mouse last week, its first multi-button mouse. From the pictures and descriptions available online, it appears to be a wonderfully conceived piece of hardware. Simple, elegant and intuitively functional. While I wouldn't mind owning one, I think I'll probably wait until my current mouse gives up the ghost--which will, of course, likely be never.

Software

Several little software packages have helped me organize my workflow as of late and I'd like to briefly mention them in case they might be of use to you:

• Audioscrobbler is a plugin for software music players--iTunes, in my case--that sends song information to the Audioscrobbler web site, which compiles information based on what you're listening to and compares it to others. Don't worry, it isn't sending anything other than song titles, album titles and artist names. For example, here is my user page. You can see what I've been listening to recently and who some of my favorite artists are based on music I play through iTunes or my iPod.
  

  Why would you want to do this? Well, things get interesting when you start visiting your musical neighbors (people who listen to similar music) or checking out your recommendations (based on people who play similar music and have listened to things you haven't). Essentially, this system is a wonderful way to introduce yourself to new music, completely sidestepping the music industry marketing machine.



• Mail.appetizer is a handy plugin for Mail that pops up a translucent window with message information every time you get new mail. You can quickly look at the message and decide to view it in Mail, delete it, mark it as read or simply close the window to deal with the message later.


• Delicious Library is a fairly inexpensive library system to keep track of books, CDs, movies and video games. If you have a barcode scanner and you're connected to the internet, you can scan the barcode on a CD and Delicious Library will import all of the information from Amazon.com. You can also search manually. Then, you can use it to track who you are lending things to. You can even set return dates if you'd like. The only problem is getting massive libraries into the system to get started ...


• NetNewsWire is a clean and effective RSS newsreader. I can subscribe to all of my news sources and blogs I read regularly through RSS, allowing me to open one program to see if anything new has been posted on 25 different sites. Utilizing RSS has significantly cut down my aimless browsing time.


• Quicksilver behaves much like the new Spotlight feature in OS X Tiger, but I continue to use it because it seems to work a lot quicker. It's basically an application that points to programs, documents, e-mail addresses, songs--any kind of information, really--and gives you immediate access to all of them in one keystroke. For example, to open any program on my computer, I press the Apple key and the spacebar at the same time, type in the first few letters of the program and press enter. Or, if I wanted to visit a bookmarked website, I could simply type in the first few letter of the address to immediately access the site. If my browser isn't open, it is launched and the site is opened. Slick.


• M-Beat is a little application for iTunes that places playback controls in the menubar, among several other handy features.

Well, I hope you found that slightly useful. If nothing else, you were introduced to several nifty applications/plugins. I have no idea how often I'll end up posting these TechNotes, so stay tuned (if you're interested in this sort of thing).

I was reading the latest disturbing news from Iraq this morning while this was playing in the background:

Wise Up

by Aimee Mann

from the Magnolia soundtrack

It's not

What you thought

When you first began it

You got

What you want

Now you can hardly stand it though,

By now you know

It's not going to stop

It's not going to stop

It's not going to stop

'Til you wise up

You're sure

There's a cure

And you have finally found it

You think

One drink

Will shrink you 'til you're underground

And living down

But it's not going to stop

It's not going to stop

It's not going to stop

'Til you wise up

Prepare a list of what you need

Before you sign away the deed

'Cause it's not going to stop

It's not going to stop

It's not going to stop

'Til you wise up

No, it's not going to stop

'Til you wise up

No, it's not going to stop

So just...give up

I started getting images from Magnolia running in my head alongside images of the war and I was startled by the emotional congruency. Both prominently feature brokenness as it unravels and leads to more destruction. In Magnolia, it takes frogs raining from the sky for catharsis--for the characters to stop, take stock in their situations and recognize the freedom only available through grace.

What will it take in Iraq?

When listening to this song, I can't help but think, "When will we wise up?" We continually attempt to use violence (a result of human brokenness) to achieve worthy ends and we repeatedly see that we cannot control the effects of these attempts.

Alaa al-Tamimi, the now deposed mayor of Baghdad, is quoted in the New York Time article linked to above: "This is the new Iraq. They use force to achieve their goal." Yes, they do. And so do we. Each side is trying to use the same means to control the situation and to force its will on the other. While it is certainly important to note that each seeks vastly different ends, the underlying intention is still the same.

I'm not sure what Aimee Mann had in mind when she originally wrote the last line of this song, but it seems particularly apropos in this context. I am most definitely not suggesting a surface level comprehension, wherein we simply give up when things become too difficult to accomplish. Whether it was Mann's intention or not, I think this line refers to giving up our attempts to control situations and outcomes in the recognition that God does a much better job of it.

While this almost reads like another take on a relatively simplistic Christian idea, it seems like we don't fully realize the implications of it. Taking up arms and attempting to use violence to reach desired ends--regardless of whether those ends are ultimately just--is a grievous and consequential wresting of power from the hands of God.

I am not saying that humans have no agency whatsoever, merely that we need to understand our role better. In the words of the late Archbishop Oscar Romero: "We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own." We need to separate ourselves, to a large degree, from the results we seek from our actions and refocus on the obedience of our actions.