Month: July 2007

Bible Codes: Are Scripture-based word find puzzles real?

There seems to be no end to the clamouring for “hidden evidence” of the varacity of the Bible. So-called Bible Codes are one manifestation of the human interest in the “hidden” and “secret.” There is an endless supply of modern-day, self-proclaimed prophets who claim to have unlocked secrets in the Bible with the application of mathematical and statistical analysis of Scripture text. All you have to do is buy their books, and suddenly, God’s secrets are yours.

The real question for a Christian believer is whether or not there is any Scriptural support for hidden messages in the Bible that can only be discovered with computers, but I’ll get to that in a moment. First let’s examine what these Bible codes are, how subjective they are, and whether or not they actually produce accurate predictions of future events.

Continue reading Bible Codes: Are Scripture-based word find puzzles real?

Feingold proves Washington gridlock is good, but tedious

I’m a firm believer that usually, it’s good when politicians in Washington are so divided that they can’t pass new legislation. When they’re gridlocked they can’t raise our taxes, pass ridiculous political speech laws like the Campaign Finance Reform, and the like.  There are exceptions, of course: we need swift consensus votes on important matters like lowering our tax burden and prosecuting important military campaigns.

But while gridlock is good, it can also be tedious. Take, for example, today’s news that Senator Russ Feingold wants Congress too “censure” President Bush for his management of the Iraq war. In fact, Feingold has a whole litany of political spankings he would like to see handed out, which he listed on Meet the Press today.

Gridlock is Good

Feingold proves gridlock is good, because without it, this guy might actually be able to cause some serious damage to the country. The only reason this won’t get traction is because Senate Majority Leader Reid knows that it wouldn’t get passed in the current very divided Congress.

Gridlock is Tedious

Feingold also proves that gridlock is tedious, because here we have a US Senator proposing that Congress pass utterly meaningless “censures,” which would do absolutely nothing except waste time and more tax money. Even if Feingold could corral up enough of his peers to pass these censures, they mean nothing. Bush would still be the Commander in Cheif, Gonzales would still be Attorney General, and Halliburton would still be the only company capable of coordinating civil logistics in occupied territories of the Middle East.

Feingold can’t actually think he will get anywhere with these absurd censure votes, and most certainly knows that they would accomplish absolutely nothing. Bush has proved on many occasions that his policies aren’t poll-based, and a “poll” of Congress’ opinion of Bush is just as irrelevant to him.

Feingold is just trying to score points with his liberal base at home. With gridlock, that’s really all he can accomplish.  And that’s a good thing.

Microsoft plans next Windows release in three years

Todd Bishop is reporting that Microsoft is planning the next release of Windows for three years from now.

[Insert obligatory Vista-was-supposed-to-come-out-in-2004 joke here.]

Of interest to me: The next Windows will be 32 and 64 bit. Some people have erroneously concluded that the next major release of Windows will be 64-bit only. It’s good that won’t be the case, because a 64-bit environment instantly “breaks” thousands of device drivers that will probably never be updated. Hardly anyone really needs a 64-bit OS now anyway.

As to this three year thing: obviously, that won’t happen.  Microsoft isn’t meeting its OS release schedules. And should it happen in only three years? No. Aside from a few techno-whiners, nobody in the real world cared that Windows XP was Microsoft’s consumer OS for six years. Well, maybe the whiners and the Microsoft shareholders itching for a new bump in sales.

I do not have any desire to upgrade my OS every three years. Stability on the desktop is a good thing for users and especially for developers. Five years seems like a reasonable time-frame to me.

How to get super rich and never have to work again

(Well, not really. Keep in mind that you’re reading a post by someone who is not rich and works like a dog almost every day.)

Here’s an interesting book if you’re curious about how successful technology companies get started: Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days by Jessica Livingston.

Founders at Work is a collection of interviews with 32 people who started, or helped start, super-successful companies like Adobe, TiVo, Blogger, Yahoo!, and more. It also includes interviews with people who founded not-very-successful-but-made-the-founders-super-rich companies, like Hotmail and Lycos. (Yes, I know, some people will disagree with me about those companies not being successful. Hotmail has had serious problems, and I think Lycos’ domain name expired yesterday. Just be glad I didn’t put Apple on that list!)

These types of books always interest me, because I am one of those individualist entrepreneur types. I don’t ever expect to “hit it big,” because my focus is always on narrow niches, but it’s still fun to read about people who, often enough, created extremely successful businesses without really trying to.

For example, PayPal began as a PDA application and initially told customers they didn’t want it to be used to pay for auctions. They eventually abandoned the initial goals of PayPal and now everybody uses it to pay for auctions.

Then there are the companies that almost collapse under their own initial success, like Blogger. Prya Labs didn’t set out to create a new “sphere” (as in blogo-), but when it did, had lots of users and no way to make any money off them. They had to lay off practically the entire company and run on fumes until someone with lots of money (Google) came in and made the one guy who stuck around super wealthy.

There are, of course, several companies represented in the book who did exactly what they set out to do. But that’s boring.

And there’s the occasional founder who was so wrapped up in what was happening to him that he doesn’t know what was going on around him: like Steve Wozniak (aka the Woz) who is still convinced that the Apple II set all sorts of records that it didn’t, and thinks Commodore passed on acquiring Apple when in fact Steve Jobs tried to push Jack Tramiel too hard and lost the chance. But I digress.

I can certainly recommend reading this book. At the very least, you’ll learn that nobody ever got rich because of a book or blog post they read, and most of the ones who do get rich don’t stop working after their bank accounts overflow.

Taking ownership of your words

Joel has a great rant about anonymous blog comments.

The way to give people freedom of expression is to give them a quiet place to post their ideas. If other people disagree, they’re welcome to do so… on their own blogs, where they have to take ownership of their words.

I agree, mostly.  I’ve been running this blog for over four years and never opened it up for comments, until a few days ago when I migrated to WordPress. That’s why you’ll see that almost every post on this site has no comments.

But I don’t think the answer has to be “no comments for anyone.” My blog is my own little dictatorship. There is no free speech here except where I allow it. I don’t think there is anything wrong with putting all comments into a moderation queue and filtering out the ones that peg the stupid meter.

And, of course, disallowing anonymous comments.

Anyway, where I really agree with Joel is on the notion of taking ownership if your words. On my blog, everyone knows who I am. If I say something controversial, I don’t hide behind a shield of anonymity. In fact, bloggers like Joel (and me) are putting a lot on the line when blogging about things that might make people mad. We’re also selling our stuff on the internet. I know without a doubt — because people have told me! — that my openness about some of my unpopular opinions has cost me sales. But an anonymous comment on a blog posts means nothing to me, because it takes nothing to say it.