April 13, 2006

The Gospel of Judas

I read the gospel of Judas today. I was disappointed. Perhaps my standards for heresy are too high. When I first read about this YAGG (Yet Another Gnostic Gospel, not to be confused with the earlier 'revolutionary' gospels of Thomas, Mary, the Savior, Peter, et al), off my imagination lifts, fancying over the Pythagorean influence, the enchanting Egyptian cultic rituals, the deep, Matrix-y suspicions that things aren't how they seem, etc. All I get is a few little number tricks and some self-generating-emination dude named Saklas. Hell, Borges' fiction is more pruriently believable than this dross. Why can't the secret, forbidden knowledge be more exciting???!!!

Additionally, I have also concluded that Scientology is a new Gnosticism, based on similarities between their cosmologies. In reading the gospel of Judas, the full picture of what L. Ron Hubbard was striving to capture all those years quickly appeared.

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April 11, 2006

An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism

This is the last lecture from Alvin Plantiga's guest lecture series at Covenant College. My notes from the first lecture were posted a few days ago. Gillikan has also posted his notes from this lecture.

There is a science–religion conflict The argument Questions

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March 16, 2006

The Flat Tax: the Poor and the Lucky

In reading a Times article on Estonia's economic policy, I was unexpectedly met with an incisive evaluation of an internal debate that has been raging recently.

It's obviously not right for there to be an equality gap between social groups such that lives in the poor group are cut short due to a lack of resources easily accessible (even taken for granted) to all other social groups. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last year exemplifies this. In sum, "the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer" disappoints as a viable development for our society.

To digress, perhaps that last statement was what Kanye West was attempting to put onto point with his pithy outburst regarding Katrina last year.

To continue, however, there's an equally strong intuition that people should be free to use their abilities to gain position and power, especially in a society where everybody else is working towards the same goal. I should be free to pursue my dream of financial independence; I should be free to pursue the American dream of lifting yourself up by the bootstraps out of poverty and into affluence the likes of which your ancestors never dreamed.

To distill those last two paragraphs, there seems to be a conflict between the imperative to help the poor and society's innate desire to grow in prosperity.

"Everybody dreams about a society with no inequality," Prime Minister Ansip said. "But the best policy is to have a strongly growing economy. With more prosperity we can increase social benefits."
Reinstating a progressive tax, he said, would pay for education and for more aid to families and the elderly. With Estonia facing a national election in March 2007, Mr. Savisaar is expected to make that a political issue.

"What are the best societies to live in?'" asked Mr. Savisaar's top adviser, Heido Vitsur. "The best societies in the world to live in are the Nordic societies. We have to move in that direction."

Mr. Ansip is all for catching up with Finland and Sweden. But he says Estonia should not do it by abandoning a policy that he says helped propel the country this far. "I don't think it's the right thing for every country in the world," he said. "But it really suits Estonia."

Want measured political discourse that engages in substantial issues with a broad perspective?

Estonia - a world superlative!

Discover Estonia and you will see it is phenomenal. Like Alice in her Wonderland, you will find there is even more to see in Estonia than you have dreamed about. The dream world becomes real and the reality is unbelievable.

It takes no effort to grasp that rapid changes are taking place around you. Change means development, fulfillment, a process of improving. Estonia’s technological sector is thriving while the past - our history and nature - has been perfectly preserved. From untouched nature to post-modern city culture, you can experience solitude and the forces of masses. Big business and handicrafts passed from generation to generation stand hand by hand. Everything fits snugly together. Estonia - positively transforming. Welcome to Estonia.


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February 07, 2006

Professorial Podcasting

...as if members of academia needed another outlet for their blowhard bloviating. And I mean that nicely.

Last week I noticed iTunes introduced a selection of class lectures from Stanford profs, along with other silly university marketing content. I listened to a discussion on whether philosophy is the handmaiden or queen of the sciences with Peter Godfrey-Smith, guesting from Harvard University. Not a terribly stimulating session, but the potential is there for exposing your pedagogy and advancing your thinking in a way that is both hip and accessible.

Stanford is the first university to take advantage of Apple opening up iTunes for free hosting and distribution of college/university content. Josiah, I know that you were working on something like this for some Covenant faculty. Perhaps a setup like Profcast could assist in getting that off the ground--between Profcast and the new iTunes U, you have the recording, editing, hosting, and distribution of content, close to maximally automated.

Posted by Noel at 05:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 02, 2006

An Open Letter to the Hamilton County Clerk Regarding Web Site Standards and Accessibility [Updated]

To: CountyClerk@mail.hamiltontn.gov
CC: webmaster@mail.hamiltontn.gov
From: noel at weichbrodt dot org
Subject: Express Tag Renewal Center Online Accessibility

Clerk Knowles (and Webmaster),

I was shocked to find, upon attempting to access your online Express Tag Renewal Center (http://www.countyclerkanytime.com/onlinesvcs.htm), that you do not support standards-based web browsers (https://secure.hamiltontn.gov/cclerk/tags/browser.asp) like Firefox (http://www.getfirefox.com). I and many of my friends and family (all your constituents) only use web browsers that adhere to the formal standards of the web (http://webstandards.org/about/) and that offer full protection from various internet exploits and dangers (http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/faq.html#mozvsie). To not offer your services to us because of our choice is both a slight and a self-condemnation.

Upon examination of your county web site, it seems that it currently stands in violation of Section 508 (http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=3), which mandates compliance with both web standards and disabled accessibility standards (http://webstandards.org/learn/faq/#p312). Though Section 508 is a Federal law, and thus does not directly apply to the County, as a government agency compliance with Section 508 demonstrates your concern for standards and accessibility, especially for your constituents who are disabled (http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/websites2.htm), also (http://www.alistapart.com/stories/politics/). Further, demanding the use of closed-source web browsers ignores the quantifiable superiority of other options (http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html).

There are a number of Chattanooga-based small businesses who are competent in the area of standards-based and accessibility-compliant web design (http://www.aiga50.org/cha/). I suggest that if your IT team does not agree with the industry standards and best practices in this area you avail yourself of their reasonably-priced services.

Please note that I will shortly discuss this issue, along with this letter, on my community blog (http://barelylegalsubstance.chattablogs.com). If you wish for further information regarding what I have mentioned above, or to discuss these matters, please contact me directly.

Thank you for your consideration.

Noel Weichbrodt

Background:
A city employee who wishes to remain anonymous recently wrote this on a Linux-related mailing list:

this sucks... the reason they wanted to know what sort of user-agent info is being sent from Safari is so that they could *allow* that browser to access the County Clerk tag & title website... [I] asked why the hell can't I use Firefox anymore? Their reason:
Firefox is open source. A hacker could modifiy the code and post a hacked version of Firefox on the net. People download the hacked version of Firefox and it sends passwords and other sensitive information back to the hacker.
...the guy who made the policy to block Firefox [on the Express Tag Renewal Center] is one of the programming team managers here. the programmer said he wanted to block firefox, not because of security issues, but because he didn't want to code his website to work with all possible browsers.

In light of what the city employee posted, my letter attempts to take the County's elected officials to task. If you care about this sort of stuff, take a couple minutes and write to the addresses I noted above with your concerns.

This, while other counties are cutting costs and increasing performance by switching to free/open source software.

Update: Added links to the quoted URLs

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November 03, 2005

A Modest Proposal to the Librarian of Congress

Submission Information


Proposed class or classes of copyrighted work(s) to be exempted:

Motion Pictures, Software, Audio Recordings, and Digital Text.

Brief summary of the argument(s) in support of the exemption proposed above:

These classes of works (Motion Pictures, Software, Audio Recordings, and Digital Text) have traditionally been granted copyrights for the purpose of encouraging the public dissemination of the works for the benefit and use of the public by providing a property incentive to the originator for a short period of time. The DMCA ignores this traditional cause of granting a copyright, and moreover establishes crippling restrictions on the aforementioned "benefit and use of the public". As such, the DMCA's use should be restricted to the text of the DMCA itself, with the consequence being that any private party which attempts to discern the workings of the DCMA with the intent to apply it in any broader fashion outside of the text of the Act itself would be committing a punishable, criminal action under the DMCA.

Just an idea ;)
I am awaiting a response from the LoC.
Found via Slashdot.

Thank you!

The following information was submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office at 17:35 on 11/3/05. Please print this page for your records.

[I have read the notice of inquiry and acknowledge that my attached submission will be posted on the Copyright Office website.]: Acknowledged

[Name]: Noel Weichbrodt

[Title]: Application Developer

[Organization]:

[Street Address]: The Volunteer Building

[Address Line 2]:

[City]: Chattanooga

[State]: TN

[ZIP]: 37402

[Phone]: 4237858262

[Fax]:

[Submitter's email]: nweichbrodt millermartin com

[Proposed class or classes of copyrighted work(s) to be exempted]: Motion Pictures, Software, Audio Recordings, and Digital Text.

[Brief summary of the argument(s) in support of the exemption proposed above]: These classes of works (Motion Pictures, Software, Audio Recordings, and Digital Text) have traditionally been granted copyrights for the purpose of encouraging the public dissemination of the works for the benefit and use of the public by providing a property incentive to the originator for a short period of time. The DMCA ignores this traditional cause of granting a copyright, and moreover establishes crippling restrictions on the aforementioned "benefit and use of the public". As such, the DMCA's use should be restricted to the text of the DMCA itself, with the consequence being that any private party which attempts to discern the workings of the DCMA with the intent to apply it in any broader fashion outside of the text of the Act itself would be committing a punishable, criminal action under the DMCA.

[Attached file]: ExceptionProposal.doc

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July 23, 2005

For the Last Time, Harry Potter != Satanic: A Response to Doug Phillips [Updated]

Subject: Re: Harry Potter and the Lavender Brigade On Jul 23, 2005, at 11:28 AM, Mom wrote: Noel, would you please read this treatise and let me know what thoughts you have after reading it. I would really like to hear your opinions on what Doug Phillips has to say. Thanks. Love, Mom

...And poof, there went my Saturday morning. My Mom forwarded me an email-only essay by Doug Phillips of the Vision Forum organization titled "Harry Potter and the Lavender Brigade". From appearances, they're not posting the essay on their site because, one would surmise, of its rather poorly argued nature, I mean, its rather inflammatory nature. What with all the false analogies and such. Anyways, I won't reproduce it here out of respect for their copyright, but if you want to read it, just leave a comment below and I'll forward it on to you a poster at freerepublic.com has put up an unformatted copy. Below is my heated response to the argument that J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series should not be read by Christians because it is an imagined world that is rooted in magic as practiced by humans, which for Phillips equates to, well, I'm not quite sure, but reading about that world is like worshipping other gods, which we may all agree is bad.

Follow the jump for my savage six-paragraph retort that I wrote for my lovely Mom...

For the Last Time, Harry Potter != Satanic!

In my reading, Jerram Barrs' treatment of Potter is more consistent logically, as well as more grounded in Biblical criticism. I wrote something along the same lines a couple of years ago. Phillips goes off the deep end here. I counted four circular arguments in a brief skim, and I have no doubt more could follow a deeper read. But really, the first circular argument sinks his entire ship.

The tip of the iceberg might be found in Phillips inconsistent usage of what to call those who practice magic. He repeatedly refers to those, both male and female, as 'witches'. In fact, he never uses the term 'wizard' to refer to a male practitioner of magic. I see this as the first indication of a systematic failure to grasp the place of magic in fantasy and in reality (both of which by definition of our faith are created, upheld, and brought to an fore-ordained end by God alone). The failure, moreover, is not just definitional, but hermeneutical. For a full exploration of exactly what magic in the world of Harry Potter is and means, please read my earlier-mentioned essay. I shall soldier on and explain the hermeneutical failure that Phillips shows.

Don't be fools and think that we can imagine something outside the law of God, which has been imprinted on every human heart and is reflected in some way in every output of human imagination. The wretched trope of equating magic with homosexuality that Wilson pushes at the beginning lumbers, clumsy and insipid, toward constructing a logical equivalency between a single sinful act (homosexuality) and an entire moral vista as imagined by a profoundly fecund mind (J.K. Rowling's moral, magical world of Harry Potter). Any small amount of brain matter that tries to reconcile this equivalency will spit it out like so much spoiled milk; they are not. Even the most morally wretched world as imagined by man, like the recent movie Sin City, cannot run far enough away that it gets away from Almighty God. To posit that Rowling has accomplished what Jonah failed elicits my laughter at the small, small god in which Phillips evidently believes.

Let me make clear here what Phillips leaves as an exercise to the reader: in his argument, The Lord of the Rings was a sinful exercise in imagining a godless, abominable world. Don't agree with that? Yes, I thought you might not. But if we accept that the sympathetic inclusion of humans practicing magic is sinful, then that's where we're going to find ourselves. Not that I follow Tolkien rather than Jesus, but I trust him a hell of a lot more than Phillips.

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of the lack of hermeneutical imagination displayed by those of Phillips and ilk, and find refuting their every latent legalistic literalist law tedious. Which leads me to my strongest argument. Does Phillips actually think that Rowling created an entire world based on the worship of Satan and the practice of satanic powers by humans intent on destroying the People of God? I don't know what Harry Potter series Phillips is reading, by its not the one that is #1 on the New York Times bestseller list (or, for those who like their lists compiled by a Christian source, World's best selling books list. It's on both, kids).

For the record, I find the most amusing circular argument in the third point of Phillips' argument, where he attempts, after repeated denials that the portrayal of magic of any kind by a human is sinful and, by implication, punishable by death as under Deutronomical law, to carve out a small space for magical creatures (and reading between the lines, is trying desperately to allow C. S. Lewis' Narnia back into his little AV1610 world). It turns out that writing about dragons is okay because the Bible mentions dragons. In the KJV. Based on a mistranslation of the Hebrew in 1610, therefore, dragons are in, but sinful bastard creatures like fauns are out. And heaven help us if we attempt to create an allegorical world that uses magic as a metaphor for society's use of technology and as a device that examines isolation and anxiety as we grow from children to men and women. As it is said, so may it be.

Posted by Noel at 11:04 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

February 17, 2005

Castle in the Clouds

Just added a new category, “Castle in the Clouds”. It's about Covenant College, my alma mater. There's a lot of stuff going on up there on Lookout Mountain, and my feelings tender strength such that I should address publicly. So this category won't be too related to my normal geeky posting. Not quite politics, not quite religion, not quite geek. But quite barely legal substance. Ignore it if you wish.

Disclaimer aside, here's my proposal. We need to get a collective conversation going about Covenant. Crossman & Raymond resigning, Core changing, Residence Life & handbook changes, &c. You all know where I stand on most stuff from my student days. Justin, Ellis, Mesh, and Josiah have already posted regarding these things.

Tipping point? We should start putting some pressure the school from the blogsphere. Aggregate our posts into a group blog, perhaps. Get a conversation going, initiated by the recent alumni tip. There's no conversation happening now, and so we're left speculating and growing discontent. Between Wired Mesh, Irresponsible Journalism, and Subcurrents, we could get some attention, methinks. Goodness knows the comments on Josiah’s recent post were an indication enough. Anybody else want to join in?

Let's get NBN blogging, Anderson blogging, etc. Get guys like Derek into the mixtape. Two-way conversations are good things, and Covenant’s problem for two years has been a lack thereof. The power of blogs is that they effect changes in that nature.

Just a proposal. What say you, bloggers?

Posted by Noel at 09:46 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

February 04, 2005

Persuading Foreign Computers in Foreign Tongues

Does an Italian computer speak Italian? Brad Abram's blog gets hectic when he asks for sample .NET code in any language. The comments delve into some interesting discussions about the "universal language" of code, the hegemony English has in technical literature, and the freedom to code in their chosen tongue. There's a guy who says he learned English solely from computer science books and science fiction.

Bonus: why does there seem to be a preponderance of Italians working on the .NET platform? Note the nationalities of the commentary above for example.

Posted by Noel at 09:45 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 25, 2005

The Master, As He Rises and Departs, Still Teaches

I forelornly sit at William Safire's feet, tightly hoping to catch a drop of golden talent in my sweaty palm.

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January 24, 2005

Writing Software As Digital Rhetoric

The art of persuading computers to do what you want them to. That's one of my internal definitions of what writing software means.

When people ask what I do, my past response has been that I am a programmer for a law firm. This is not comprehended well, so I've been toying with different ways to describe what I do. A tougher-than-it-looks task. I have settled on the claim that “I write software that is used by a law firm.” This answer reels in more comprehending faces and lighter eyes. What is different between a "programmer" and "writing software"? Well, the latter describes an action while the former is a noun.

Further, there's the idea that what I do is somewhat orthogonal to what a writer of novels, or short stories, or essays does. I plot, I outline, I adopt the most persuasive line of argument. I practice rhetoric on the computer. Seems like a good heuristic to hang my hat on for most people.

Posted by Noel at 05:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 14, 2004

The Digital Practice of Rhetoric, R. Scoble Fashion

Scoble details his practice of rhetoric.

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