Dienstag, September 30, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 22:39 sitting in a sweet hotel here in Krakow with Jana and Martin, about to play bridge with the Meiburgers. Life is good... #
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Montag, September 29, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 08:38 i have one more invite for otherinbox. anyone interested? #
  • 08:56 @Trupedo_Glastic Theoretisch losgeschickt...hast du das invite gekriegt? (hatte ein leichtes browserproblem deswegen frag ich lieber) #
  • 10:12 nice, I just "happened upon" a solution for a bug that could have taken me all day to find. good start into the day... #
  • 22:50 ad: "when kids think man ray is a poisonous jellyfish, we need more art in our schools..." uh...who or what is "man ray"? gotta google it. #
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Sonntag, September 28, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 17:47 awesome weather today. got a lot done in the apartment, looking forward to yummy dinner. #
  • 19:11 Wow, what a great line in this song on the radio. "I can't say if I believe, but if God made you he's in love with me." #
  • 19:13 @Trupedo_Glastic Genialste Beschreibung eines leckeren Kuchens. Evar. #
  • 21:06 watching a totally intriguing interview of John Piper by Mark Driscoll. tinyurl.com/53w5l7 #
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Samstag, September 27, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 08:16 @noeljesse yeah well we all have our little quirks... is.gd/3czi ;-) #
  • 21:27 home from a great RB service. I love our church. :) #
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Freitag, September 26, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 08:48 vintage jesus is a great book. "jesus rules over our pants, our fridge, our web browser, and our car horn." #
  • 14:55 Freaky. Google is starting to provide code snippets in my search results. Google knows me far too well. #
  • 19:14 getting a "bunker evening" to prepare for the teaching tomorrow. Not quite Noel's "bunker day" (see is.gd/3aZF), but hey..."immerhin" #
  • 22:08 excited about the teaching. #
  • 22:32 musicovery is way cool. and it works in europe, unlike pandora. #
  • 22:35 This is just so....wrong. But I can't stop laughing. is.gd/38bq #
  • 22:40 retweeting: This is just so....wrong. But I can't stop laughing. is.gd/38bq (note: quite a few expletives in there if that offends u) #
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Donnerstag, September 25, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 08:45 Using Digsby for IM, Email, and Twitter - www.digsby.com #
  • 09:01 Meebo(is.gd/39B), I'm leaving you for Digsby(is.gd/5ag). So sorry, but Digsby is just so...supportive(of Facebook and Twitter) #
  • 12:00 taking off the rest of the day to get our old apartment all finished. that will be very nice to be all done with that. #
  • 14:06 ouch. google spreadsheets are down. just my luck, I only use them like once every month or something. :-( #
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Mittwoch, September 24, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 23:09 wow, project euler looks like pure crack for computer programming geeks. projecteuler.net #
  • 08:42 any programmer worth his/her salt needs to join in at www.stackoverflow.com - unbelievable treasury of crowd-wisdom at your fingertips. #
  • 09:59 migrating our trac installation to postgreSQL... already hitting the first snag. #
  • 16:22 @6oclockvintage tinyurl.com/2nb769 #
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Dienstag, September 23, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 07:21 @otherinbox aww, now even the alpha version isn't working any more with Chrome? What's the current plan for Chrome support? #
  • 07:27 welcomes @andypotter to the mad but fun world of Twitter. #
  • 18:59 watching my favorite Disney movie as a child, Robin Hood, for the first time with my wife and kids. Ahh, the memories. :) #
  • 21:17 yay! otherinbox works on Chrome now! #
  • 22:17 hanging out with my brother Mark who is in Berlin to celebrate his Vordiplom. Congrats! #
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Montag, September 22, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 07:32 just posted a bunch of thoughts about The Shack is.gd/2Wqt #
  • 15:19 very much looking forward to going to Krakow next week #
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Sonntag, September 21, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 16:48 @JSKern thx! Get the Twitter application: is.gd/1hi7 And then the BlogThis app: is.gd/2UVl Also, can recommend Friendfeed.com #
  • 16:48 playing The Sims 2 with Joshua. He loves watching our virtual family just "do their thing". Pretty funny stuff. #
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Samstag, September 20, 2008

Thoughts on "The Shack"

I don't have the time to do a polished full-blown review plus it would make no sense given the single-digit readership of this blog. ;-) But since already a few people have asked for my thoughts on the book, here ya go:

So "let me explain...no that would take too long. Let me sum up." I loved the book. Loved it. It was a very refreshing read, especially since I've been reading a lot of "dry" non-fiction lately. Also I have never been so touched by a book - I actually had to stop reading a few times while on the way to work so I wouldn't cry.

At the same time, there were multiple things in the theology presented by the book that I strongly disagreed with to the point of where I don't think I would recommend the book to "baby Christians" for example. So here are my Evernote notes I jotted down while going through the book.

Stuff I Liked

Free will (p. 95) - I loved the thought of how God is sovereign AND humans have choices. The thought the "freedom is incremental" is just great: we can't choose out past, our DNA, our families, etc., but we CAN decide what to do right now.

Truth is Jesus / Jesus is Truth (p. 95) - truth as ALSO being personal rather than ONLY being abstract facts is a great thought that I really agree with. See
"Proper Confidence" by Lesslie Newbigin for a great explanation of "critical realism".


"I'm not like you" (p.97) - YES. God's "otherness" is so important in today's world of the Buddy Christ.

Trinity necessary for love and relationships (p. 101) - Awesome explanation why the Trinity is such a powerful explanation of reality being so relationship-oriented. Kinlaw's "Let's Start With Jesus" is a great look at this in greater depth.

"is all this pain and suffering worth it?" "YES!!" - reminds me of the quote by Dostoevsky.

"The real underlying flaw is you don't think I am good." "You become the judge. And if there is no reality of good that is absolute, then you ahve lost any basis for judging. It is just language, and one might as well exchange the word good for the word evil" (p.135) - the fact that it comes down to our trust specifically in the Father's goodness that causes the problem of suffering to be "solved" or not is so key. I also love this poke at the postmodern love-hate relationship with language.

"Evil and darkness exist as the absence of good and light" - classic Christian theology here. The devil is not the opposite of God, he is a created being. Evil is not the opposite of good, it is the absence of good.

Jesus has never drawn upon his nature as God to do anything, but rather lives as a human fully dependent on the Father (p. 99) - Mark Driscoll really struck this home with me in his talk on Christ. If we don't believe that Jesus was just as dependent upon God for ANYTHING, be it his miracles or his resistance to temptation, as we are, we are missing out on the beauty of Hebrews 4:15.

Worry is imagining a future with God being absent. - I loved this passage reminding us of how do seldom is God a part of our imaginations of the future.

"I am neither male nor female" (p. 93) - need to be careful here, but yes, this is true. God created man and women "in His image", meaning that maleness and femaleness derive their being from God, so God in his entirety is not solely male. (But....see below)

"Systems cannot provide you security, only I can." - Amen! Are you listening, McCain? Obama?

"You never disappoint me (because I know you fully)." - I love the thought of how since God knows the future there is no possible way we could ever disappoint him.

Stuff that bothered me

God saying "I was there with Jesus on the cross the whole time, he just didn't know it" (p. 96) - this would be a nice thought, but is missing out on God being the Righteous Judge who truly judged and fully punished Jesus who in a sense actually became sin itself for us on the cross so that our sin could be taken away (2 Corinthians 5:21).

"I don't need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment." (p.120) - This goes right along with that. Sorry, but God DOES punish people for their sin. To say that each of these hundreds of verses simply means that sin is its own punishment seems like a bit of a stretch and it also seems like the author is trying to take the opposite of the wrong view of God as ONLY Judge, malevolent sin-list-writer, frowning Grandfather. But the opposite of a wrong view is very often a wrong view itself. God IS the Righteous and Holy and Vengeant Judge who will bring about revenge and justice and punishment. But he will do so without letting go of his love and mercy. How? The Cross.

"Hierarchy is a consequence of the Fall", the Trinity is a non-hierarchical "circle of love", "Papa is as much submitted to me as I to him. We are submitted to you in the same way." (p.145) - this is where I have one of my biggest beefs with the book. This whole part of the book really smells of the postmodern distrust of authority. Biblically it's simply wrong that there is no authority within the Trinity: The Son submits to the Father's authority, the Father holds the authority but here's the thing that postmoderns seem to miss: The Father uses his authority to glorify and exalt the Son. Authority itself is NOT a bad thing but in fact springs from God's very nature. Instead, authority and hierarchy have been corrupted by the Fall. The reason this is not just boring dry theology is it ends up seeping into all kinds of relationships. Marriage? Parenting? Church? Work? If we have such an anti-hierarchical view, it will deeply affect all these relationships and cause us to neglect the many times we are called to submit or humbly lead according to our role. Example: Ephesians 5:33 - note the different verbs.

"God's voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. Nobody wanted God in a box, just in book. Especially an expensive one bound in leather." (p. 66) - Yes, this description came from before God comes in, but it's never really corrected: the only other times we hear about the Bible is when Mack finds a Gideon Bible next to his bed and falls asleep after reading a line or two, and when the Holy Spirit emphatically says that Scripture is only about a relationship with Jesus, not about rules or expectations. So I'm bothered by Scripture not being the centerpiece of HOW we come to know Jesus. I'm bothered that apparently everyone is encouraged to have their own mini-Shack experience rather than encouraged to crack open their dusty Bibles to experience God in his LIVING and ACTIVE word. (Theological side note here: What postmoderns don't like about texts is they distrust language itself as being a medium which can convey Truth. This in my opinion is a distrust in the very nature of God, "The Word". Truth requires a medium in order to be conveyed, and if we distrust the medium of God's Word, we are distrusting God Himself. See 1 Timothy 3:16 and a host of other verses about our need for trust in the Scriptures)

----

Well there ya go, this got pretty long, but it was good for me to process. I'd love to hear your thoughts out there, readers. And I mean all three of you. ;-)

Donnerstag, September 18, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 08:07 @CeC yeah, especially when you start sharing folders with groups of people. Pure coolness ensues. ;) #
  • 08:10 Eclipse is open on my left monitor, VS2008 on my right. Go-go IKVM! (don't break down on me...) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKVM #
  • 14:49 Giving the latest Jupiter Code Review plugin a spin. tinyurl.com/44q5oz #
  • 16:45 @ajvan half serious about the enjoying part, about you making it, or about it being your own machine? ;-) #
  • 16:49 @CeC Go Anagram! :) #
  • 16:50 @Cec oops I meant Anagran #
  • 21:55 thinking I should get to bed seeing as how I'm way tired and need to get up early tomorrow... #
  • 22:00 this is awesome (did I say I wanted to go to bed? forget that) is.gd/2OnV #
  • 22:16 wow, an entire course on "preaching in a postmodern world" by none other than tim keller. For free. iTunesU rocks. is.gd/2Oqe #
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Mittwoch, September 17, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 08:48 my mind is still buzzing from reading a book my dad lent me called "The Starfish and the Spider" about decentralized organizations. #
  • 09:41 hey google desktop people out there: is there any way to do a search for a file name only? I'm looking for a file with a specific name. #
  • 10:59 i am absolutely loving otherinbox. I haven't received a single email in my GMail inbox all morning!!! What a feeling! @otherinbox #
  • 21:55 saw this just brilliant comedy/serious monologue about the current election linked on Noel's blog: is.gd/2Lxi I sooo agree with it. #
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Dienstag, September 16, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 07:28 posting QT thoughts on John 15:1-11 (johngoering.vox.com) such a refreshing reminder to simply stay connected to Jesus. #
  • 08:22 Google says they increased Google Desktop's performance big time. is.gd/2GZC We'll see...giving it a try right now. #
  • 16:16 what is everybody's problem with the new Facebook? It looks way better and is more Web 2.0 / Twitter / FriendFeed - ish. #
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Montag, September 15, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 07:28 Wow, John 14 is such incredible stuff. johngoering.vox.com #
  • 08:37 "If there were no God, there would be no Atheists." - G.K. Chesterton #
  • 13:26 Processing The Shack. Great book, very good & challenging stuff..mixed with dangerous postmodernist theology IMHO. So frustrating. More l8r. #
  • 14:16 Dude, stackoverflow.com is the free alternative to experts-exchange.com. Looks just awesome. www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/09 ... #
  • 15:58 ok it's official: stackoverflow.com rules. :) #
  • 20:59 my brother sent me these awesome links: DNC in a minute is.gd/2n6h RNC in a minute is.gd/2n6g "fight fight fight fight..." :) #
  • 21:54 just sat and soothed my daughter after she woke up from a nightmare...now I'm heading to bed. good night world. #
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Sonntag, September 14, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 15:51 doing an in-depth Bible study on 1 Timothy 2 with our small group. Bring it on! :) #
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Samstag, September 13, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 15:38 "Anyone Else But You" is back in my head with a vengeance. "We sure are cute for two ugly people" ...Looking forward to the teaching tonight #
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Freitag, September 12, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 08:19 dropbox is no longer beta! Seriously, you will NOT regret signing up - it's an automatic file backup and synchronization tool:getdropbox.com #
  • 10:56 ahhh, much better tune to not be able to get out of my head than the Juno song: "Satellite" by P.O.D... #
  • 14:14 @otherinbox hmm well it was the right address, but it took about 30-60 minutes to get the emails. it's definitely faster today though. weird #
  • 14:27 look over here! I'm witty, I'm smart! <insert witty and smart remark here> ... See what I mean? #
  • 14:47 can't believe i'll have been married 6 wonderful, crazy years this sunday. 6. Years. Amazing how fast life goes. #
  • 14:49 @otherinbox ok cool...though I'd rather see Chrome as your top priority. ;-) you guys are doing awesome work, I really love OI. #
  • 20:43 should be preparing my teaching on spiritual gifts, but instead I'm laughing very hard at the "best fight scene ever": is.gd/2xFU #
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Donnerstag, September 11, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 08:15 needed to stop reading chapter 11 of The Shack so I didn't start bawling on the train platform on the way to work this morning. #
  • 12:00 unbelievably cool (for a geek): real-time shared coding with Skype & Eclipse with ECF plugin. gotta see it to believe it is.gd/2tCT #
  • 12:01 @Radman that last link makes me want to start up a little coding project with you :D ( is.gd/2tCT ) #
  • 14:35 "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is." - Yogi Berra #
  • 16:03 blown away by my brother's latest "creative digestion"...love it. tinyurl.com/6dw7ep #
  • 21:12 witty line: "Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor." #
  • 21:22 unbelievable - a 2 year-old (!!) doing backflips from his stroller: is.gd/2v42 #
  • 22:19 @otherinbox hmmm how long is it supposed to take for emails to show up? #
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Mittwoch, September 10, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 08:18 sweet, just got a twitter response from otherinbox that they're working on a chrome version. #
  • 08:18 @otherinbox ok cool! looking forward to it, because i love the idea of otherinbox #
  • 08:32 is sad to see Mom leave to go back to Cologne but SO thankful for all the moving help we got from our families, and from RB. we are blessed. #
  • 08:45 some of these are really great. "LeaderMan" vs "Servant Leader" tinyurl.com/5627ve #
  • 11:27 for days I haven't been able get that song from the movie Juno out of my head. "I can't see what anyone can see in anyone else but you." #
  • 22:07 practice your apologetics: how would you respond to this? tinyurl.com/56folq #
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Dienstag, September 09, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 08:14 I really like the Jesus character in The Shack. I really disagree with the author's take on authority/hierarchy being a symptom of the Fall. #
  • 08:17 @Trupedo_Glastic LOL @ "größte geistliche Katastrophe". #
  • 15:02 aww, Otherinbox doesn't work with Chrome, the mailboxes aren't refreshing. if i gotta choose between Chrome and Otherinbox, I choose Chrome. #
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Montag, September 08, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 19:23 yay internet is working in our new apartment! once again twitter shows its dominance because it's the first thing i'm doing once online #
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Samstag, September 06, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 21:07 nice! the move went very, very quick with like 20 helpers in 3 hours. So sweet. Now everything hurts. #
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Freitag, September 05, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 08:40 have the day off work, so it's time for all-day packing, taking down Schranks (Yes, Schranks), and getting ready for the big move tomorrow. #
  • 22:46 chilling with my parents and my sister (who all just arrived) after a very, very long day of tearing stuff down. #
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Donnerstag, September 04, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 23:05 wow the poker strategy site is really coming along well. tons of articles. tinyurl.com/pokerstrategy #
  • 08:38 three chapters into "The Shack" so far. Powerful stuff. But the author's bio is the best bio EVAR. Raised among a stone-age tribe. duuude... #
  • 13:03 6 chapters into "The Shack". He's met God. God talk is a mix of 87% really good, 10% bad, and 3% really bad theology. :) Good book so far. #
  • 13:51 our office stinks like asphalt...i'd close the window but i think it's too late. #
  • 15:37 Dang I just accidentally double-posted a comment at Noel's blog making me look like an attention-hungry dork. #
  • 15:46 nowdothis.com does tabs now! this site increased my productivity by I'm guessing ~20% simply by focusing my mind for me. is.gd/1Xtb #
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Mittwoch, September 03, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 08:14 @Rafe i'm with meebo as a chrome single app #
  • 11:08 @Trupedo_Glastic was ich mit am besten finde ist dass man einzelne Webseiten als getrimmte Pseudo-Anwendungen mit ins Startmenü tun kann z.b #
  • 17:01 @Trupedo_Glastic Yeah! Nice! Glückwunsch! (Also jetzt wegen Teilzeitjob, nicht wegen Scheiß-bürokaffee-alle) #
  • 17:02 feieraaaaabend... our move is coming up this weekend so there will be a bunch to pack and do at home I'm sure... #
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Dienstag, September 02, 2008

OK, so if you don't know about this yet, Google has released their very own browser, in direct competition with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

I've been trying it out for the past couple of hourse, and it's totally awesome. The only bummer I've found so far is that it doesn't have addon capabilities like Firefox, but I'm sure that'll come at some point. Oh and it's Windows only so far, but that also is only for the early phase.

It's both faster and simpler than Firefox, and has a bunch of nice features that Firefox doesn't have (that IE doesn't even come close to being "good" should be obvious...).

So go get it and try it out yourself.

Today's Tweets

  • 08:24 very excited about Google Chrome. tinyurl.com/59fuap,M1 #
  • 08:38 The Google Chrome comic almost reminds me of those old gospel tract Chick comics. Almost. :) tinyurl.com/59fuap,M1 #
  • 15:25 love this quote from the German "My Fair Lady": "Du fleischgewordene Beleidigung deiner Muttersprache." That's how awesome German can be. #
  • 21:20 trying out Chrome. Wow, it starts up fast. And it plays CNN unlike Firefox... #
  • 21:43 ok Chrome is way impressive when it comes to simplicity and pure speed. Too bad it won't have addons like Firefox for quite a while still. #
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Montag, September 01, 2008

Today's Tweets

  • 09:04 @noeljesse yeah i enjoyed the movie as well, very intense, even though it was pretty predictable IMO. "jack" always wanted to play that role #
  • 09:05 typical monday. motivation, where art thou? #
  • 22:27 OK, whoa. Google is coming out with their own browser. This is big. ping.fm/Dv3Sm #
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