SwordSearcher 8 released.

Happy to announce the release of SwordSearcher 8.

My two favorite features from this release:

  • The KJV-TSK for integrated cross-references right in the text of the King James Bible. This is one of those seems-obvious-now-that-it’s-in-there kind of things.  It is also one of those can’t-do-without-it-now-that-I-have-it kind of things.
  • Complete, comprehensive support for Windows 10 scaling functionality. What’s that all mean? Perfect text rendering on ultra-high DPI screens, like the one on the Surface Book. (Believe it or not, this was the single most labor intensive part of the work on this new version, even though it is hardly glamorous and even difficult to demonstrate.)

All the details here.

If guns are the problem…

Since our president has wasted no time in politicizing the deaths earlier this week in California, calling for more limits on our liberties and demanding that people become more defenseless in the face of these aggressors, I thought I would see if this righteous indignation over “gun violence” was indeed just a consistent caring for life.

So, here’s a statistic from the CDC: There were 33,636 deaths due to firearms in 2013.

This statistic includes deaths not the result of violent crime, and is not adjusted for the number of lives saved each year with firearms (which is higher than the 33k figure). Also note that the FBI says that 61% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. are suicides.

Is this really the big killer today? How about another CDC statistic:

“Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States from 2006 – 2010, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years. Further, excessive drinking was responsible for 1 in 10 deaths among working-age adults aged 20-64 years.”

So, the same organization lists alcohol as a cause for over twice as many annual deaths and even more in YPLL. Does anyone think the president will call for bans on alcohol?

It’s not about guns. It’s about control.

I’m Color Blind. It’s no cure, but Enchroma glasses do work!

I hated learning colors when I was a kid. Green traffic lights look white. I’ve painted the sky purple more than once in art class.

I’m a moderate deutan — meaning I have a form of red-green color perception deficiency. You can see what it looks like here.

Enchroma sells glasses that are supposed to help a color blind person see more colors. To say I was skeptical when I first heard about it would be an understatement. Well, now I have a pair, and see for yourself my reaction.

SwordSearcher 7.2

I’m pleased to announce the release of the latest version of SwordSearcher. This new version includes several new additions to the Deluxe study library, significant speed improvements, commentary “expand to chapter” view, and lots of other useful enhancements.

All the details are here.

This is actually the 20th anniversary edition of SwordSearcher, counting from the first version that had the title “SwordSearcher” in 1995. Here’s the history.