Although the final release isn't scheduled until tomorrow at 9am, a sharp-eyed blog contributor sent us a link to what is almost certainly the final version of Matthew's rhetoric essay, probably leaked by inside sources.

Joking aside, this is the rhetoric essay I've been working on, the first of many rhetoric papers to come. I chose to tackle the subject of Christians drinking underage because they don't believe the government should be able to restrict that liberty. Well maybe it shouldn't, but if it *does*, do we have biblical grounds to disobey our civil authorities on that point? I argue not.

Enjoy!

This isn't actually all that much of a post, but I did want to refer you to some reading.

So anyway, this thing is mostly about female modesty, but it is mentioned that guys should be modest too. I believe that. It is a somewhat different affair, but worth remembering.

Anyway, here's the thing. Pastor Tollefson preached on Proverbs 7 a couple of weeks ago and I think that reminded me of seeing this mentioned on Covenant Eyes' blog and going to check it out. It's The Rebelution's Modesty Survey.

The Modesty Survey is an anonymous discussion between Christian guys and girls who care about modesty. Hundreds of Christian girls submitted their questions and over 1,600 Christian guys (of all ages) submitted 150,000+ answers—including over 25,000 text responses.

source

I think sometimes it bugs me when people give these general, Sunday school, perfect summary answers to spiritual questions. Yeah, those are good, and sometimes they are helpful. But sometimes specifics are a lot more helpful and maybe more personable. I like the Modesty Survey because it some of both. Some good general answers about Christian modesty and some very specific questions. I have to admit it was somewhat disturbing how specific some of the questions are and what they might make you think about. But, as Christians, keep your mind out of the gutter.

I think it's a good read / browse-through for guys and girls, I think. It might give some insights to the female side and let guys see what a sampling of other guys think about all this stuff, maybe learn that they might be thinking about the issue wrongly, or see other perspectives on it, or get some good clarification on it, or what you will.

Anyway, I found it interesting. As a technical aside, the questions and answers are loaded up with AJAX, so it's not so easy just to hit up a bunch of links in new tabs for later reading (plus there's often a read more responses link).

P.S. Not to be immodest myself, but…

This is our 100th post.

They weren't all big, intellectual, meaty posts; some were actually a bit trivial. But hey… two people, 100 blog posts, 1 year and 17 days. Not that bad, is it?

And…

…hopefully sometime in the soonish future, there will be a post up about us seeking some new bloggers. Also hopefully in the next few months, I can get a sweet WordPress setup all made and get a proper domain for a broken mold… either abrokenmold.com or abrokenmold.net, I would think. I'm just not digging .org for the name. I'm thinking we can get hosted with the awesome NearlyFreeSpeech.NET. It should be rather affordable with the low traffic I'm expecting (at least at first… if it ever picks up, I'll probably be able to afford some decent fixed price hosting by then).

Two common maxims are: "Familiarity breeds contempt," and "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

While there is latent truth to be found in these statements, one might conceive of a scenario where proximity to an object brings one under some some degree of influence of that object, causing one to take a more favorable view of said object. In this case, distance from the object in question and the resulting objectivity could in fact engender contempt. In this way, the proverbial dynamic may be shown to not always hold true.

Just by way of sharing one of my more interesting trains of thought...

I got a business doing websites
When my friends need some code, who do they call?
I do HTML for ‘em all
Even made a homepage for my dog

-Weird Al Yankovic, "White and Nerdy"

Wednesday was a kind of milestone, or climax, or finish, for a project of mine. And that project was Matt Barley's website.

It started as a idea in Matt's head at some time or another, and he eventually conveyed to me at the New Year's 2008-2009 party at the RimRock Inn that he had been procrastinating on the project for some time and didn't get it done in 2008 and so wanted to get it done this year. I said I could help him, and so, on January 9, the domain name was registered, and a web page converted from a Word document made on Matt's MacBook was thrown up, slightly hand edited.

The first thing I did after that was to recode the page cleanly, with the help of KompoZer. Matt wanted a menu on the side, so it went table based. Yep. I just said that. It wasn't the best of designs, and later on I changed that to a menu positioned left with CSS. Praise God for CSS. Eventually it went back to plain HTML structure with a text menu below the header. Also, somewhere along the line, Matthew of abm fame gave a couple design suggestions and some code for one of them.

And then there was the photo galleries. First I did them with Web Album Generator and tried to embed them in a page, and then tried a page per album, using in iframe. That was a pain, and eventually I gave up and put them on separate pages and edited the CSS in each album folder to make those pages appear look like the rest of the site. And then Matt didn't like so many pictures on a certain album, or something like that. So, we ended up switching to Picasa Web Albums and linking to Matt's public page from his website. That worked out pretty well, since Matt can now manage the pictures all himself, which is great for both of us.

Eventually, I wanted to set up some sort of solution so Matt could edit the site on his own. I thought of a content management system first, and looked up one I recalled seeing linked from BugMeNot called CushyCMS. So I went and checked it out. It turned out to be, as one reviewer put it, more like a remote content editor. You put the proper class on div elements you wanted editable by Cushy and give it an FTP account to work with, and that's how it works. As another reviewer said, most of the time he'd probably forget to download the version from the site if he wanted to edit with something else (e.g., by hand with a text editor). So, that idea ended up being quashed before I even tested it.

I checked out three systems after that, really: Joomla, WordPress, and CMS Made Simple. XAMPP running on Windows on my laptop was my testbed of choice. Joomla was easy enough to set up, but seemed kind of complicated. WordPress looked like it might work well for blogging, but that's not what I was gunning for (although abm may be gunning for it in the future). CMS Made Simple ended up being it. The template/stylesheet system was easy enough to understand, and the use of the Smarty template system seemed nice. Not that I had heard of it before, but inserting Smarty tags seems to me a good way to insert special content into pages.

The first day of development gladdened the heart, because it seemed like it would work out great, and there was a pretty sweet little Picasa Web Albums module I found. There were some frustrations after that. A lot of aggravation dealing with CSS. In fact, that's been a thing all through the development of the website. Eventually things got ironed out and the site was finally ready for launch. The launch however, was terrible. I tried several times to upload and correctly configure the site for being on the server, and made a clean version of the site a couple times while at it. This process was highly frustrating, the least of reasons not being that I still have dial-up! Anyway, I finally got it nailed down and done correctly.

After after putting it in a test directory and then getting the go ahead from Matt, it went root, and now sits there beautifully. It's not much, but I have to admit I'm rather proud of it and am thinking that I may even redo our church website with CMSms if given stewardship of it. So, go check it out.

So I just thought I'd put fingers to keyboard, so to type, since I had a couple thoughts...

(Yes, that was a not-so-subtle parody of Nat's post here.)

-Part 1-

Well, over the course of our vacation/trip, we've been staying at the houses of various friends and relatives (similar to Linux distro-hopping, I daresay) and one of the features that varies between locations is the reading selection. At one of my uncles and aunts' house, they had a number of Frank Peretti books; I've read several of his: The Oath, Hangman's Curse and Nightmare Academy, some from the Cooper series, and also Piercing the Darkness. However, I had not read Monster or House, a book he co-authored with Ted Dekker, nor had I read This Present Darkness, to which Piercing the Darkness is a sequel. They had all three of these books, and I read all three last weekend.

This, I imagine, puts me in a somewhat qualified position to review and comment on Peretti's literary offerings, and that is what I intend to do.

Peretti's books might be generally described as supernatural thrillers; he gives angels, demons, and spiritual warfare a very real place in everyday life. In addition, he provides insight on modernity and culture from a biblical perspective; his plots depict the consequences of fallen human nature in a gripping and lively fashion. His simple and unrefined dialogues and almost over-the-top vivid descriptions combine to create an urgent, driving story.

In Monster, for example, the story begins with a handful of people taking a weekend retreat into the wilderness, but an ongoing thread of perplexing hints and puzzle pieces races through the building tension to form an entire web of intrigue that involves Sasquatches, hair-raising hunts and gruesome deaths, and the ruthless advance of Atheistic science. House deals with a deadly game of manipulation and greed, fueled by fear and Satanism, and ultimately exposes our bondage to Sin in our own hearts, and liberation through Christ and sacrifice.

"Light came into the darkness, but the darkness did not understand it."

This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness vividly depict the struggle of the Remnant against the onslaught of Humanistic (and ultimately Satanistic) agendas, power struggles for the education system, government, and even entire towns. But beyond this superficial picture, the awesome conflict between angels and demons, good against evil, is beautifully portrayed. These books are a powerful testament to the efficacy of prayer, with the prayers of the saints providing "prayer cover" for angels to carry out maneuvers, and strength to meet demons in battle. Finally, the assurance that shouts so gloriously from the pages is that God IS ultimately in control, and "light will always pierce the darkness." Shades of C.S. Lewis's deeper magic. I get goosebumps.

So, as the angels say, "For the saints of God and for the Lamb!"

-Part 2-

Now, a bit on mewithoutYou (mentioned of course in many previous posts), arguably my favorite band. To be perfectly honest, my estimation of mwY may have been somewhat lowered by what I've recently learned. Then again, maybe I've just *altered* my preconceptions, while still holding their work in the same esteem. I think that really is the key word-- preconceptions. Not to flood this post with C.S. Lewis references or anything, but I think there is something to be said for his (if somewhat Universalist) account in The Last Battle of the dialogue between Aslan and Emeth (a Calormene), where Aslan explains that, while Emeth thought he had been worshipping Tash, he had in fact been serving Aslan, "For I and he [Tash] are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him." Okay, so it isn't just Lewis's idea either... maybe that's what Paul was getting at in the Areopagus, eh?

The point I'm trying to pose for consideration is the possibility that, despite maybe not holding the correct understanding/belief of Scripture, it is still possible to worship and obey the one true God. That does seem to be validated by Paul's speech. Of course, you don't yet know what I'm referring to, do you? Sorry...

*deep breath*

Well, being on vacation and all, I was able to take some time to do a bit more research on mwY, the band philosophy and background, etc. And I came across a few things that I found a bit unsettling. First there's the fact that their lyrics and philosophy are influenced by Sufi Islam teachings (Aaron was raised in a Sufi household before he converted to Christianity; his father converted from Judaism and his mother from Episcopalian). Then again, it isn't as if such beliefs are *necessarily* in contradiction with a Christian aesthetic. However, it does indicate to me that they aren't on the page I thought they were, at least not nominally, and sometimes nominally can be important. More on that later. Next, I found a couple of interviews with lead vocalist Aaron Weiss found here and here. From the first interview, we find this excerpt:

It’s not like I’m offended if someone says we’re a Christian band. I just don’t think it’s true. I don’t think we live up to that calling, so I’d be reluctant to go saying that, and God knows the truth. Our hearts are very far from Jesus.

Now that concerns me somewhat. However, if you take that in perspective with their lyrics, what do you end up with? They certainly don't seem "far from Jesus" in the many references to Jesus in their songs and the story that they tell. Eh. Hmm.

From the second interview:

I'm trying to understand the Bible, and um, but I definitely don't put it on the same pedestal that I used to. You know, where I'd say, "this is the word of God that I'm holding in my hand and this is infallible and perfect, and there's no contradictions and is scientifically accurate," and all the rest...

And then he goes on to point out reasons he now regards it as more of collection of holy Jewish stories and poems. In this list he cites various "inconsistencies," and how he just wasn't convinced by efforts to sustain their validity. I'm glad, however, to see that he goes on to say, "There's just some things that I pray to God to guide me in the right way and to guide me to the truth in the best way." He's evaluating things that the Bible says by what is written on his conscience, and I hope God will grow him that way.

So, to conclude, I want to express a few final thoughts about the worship/worldview issue. Looking at Romans 1, we seem to find another indicator of God's natural revelation and the potential to worship Him with the knowledge given. Is one absolutely required to have received the gospel to be included in God's kingdom? I hope not... what about those far-flung tribes who have lived for centuries "without excuse"? Then again, I do think it's important to claim the name of Christ if you've received the gospel. I don't know how that all works out... I realize this is sort of a whole different topic, but it is one that pertains directly to the subject at hand, so I'm trying just to briefly set up a framework. C.S. Lewis (last reference, I promise), in Pilgrim's Regress, outlines such a model, where he describes the heathens as being given a "picture" of "Sweet Desire" by God, and in striving towards that, they were living by His law. The Christians in Puritania, however, have the law without the picture. At any rate, I think it does make sense.

However it may be, I love the poetry and passion of mewithoutYou and believe their theme is in worship to God, and I certainly pray for them and hope to see them in Heaven. Can't wait to listen to It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright when I get home in a week or so.

Bonus material: check out http://improveverywhere.com. Hilarious stuff, but language disclaimer.

-Matthew

So I just thought I'd put pen to paper, so to speak, since I had a couple thoughts.

First thing: the free culture music scene. I don't really have a lot of experience there, but I do know this so far: there is some great talent there. For instance, I've downloaded all of JT Bruce's released albums on the fabulous Jamendo (which I gushed about back here). I have some other music from there, but his are probably my favorites so far. And I've heard about Jack Conte… sounds interesting. In fact, I find the whole culture interesting. In a related channel, some of this vibe seems to be seeping out into mainstream music. Notably, Nine Inch Nails (and by implication, its sole member, Trent Reznor). Reznor seems to have gotten sick of major label trash, and in fact gave some thoughts for new and unknown artists recently on the NIN forums.

So, while I don't think I would completely abandon the mainstream industry, I respect this free culture. It's really a fascinating thing to me and I do want to learn more. I'm still coming to grips with what I think about copyright law (well, okay, maybe I should say I haven't sat down and given it a deep think-through yet). I think it's right to obey copyright law, because it's the law and there doesn't seem to be anything inherently evil about it, but maybe it does need to be revised (I'm talking U.S. here). When Congress finally gets around to it (2014 maybe?), it's going to be a doozy, whatever happens. The explosion of the digital age cannot be ignored. Anyway, it's an interesting thing, and I want to learn more about all of it (did I already say that?). Hopefully, I can eventually make my music collection 100% legal (meaning buy copies of all the stuff I don't own and want to keep; some CD's and some single downloads).

Second thing: Rockbox. If you're the type who might run Linux, you might like Rockbox, the awesome alternative firmware for jukeboxes (mp3 players). OK, maybe you don't need to run Linux, but I just thought maybe there's a similar appeal. Anyway, I've been running Rockbox on my Sansa e200 version 1 since fall or early winter last year. I was running the few week old 3.0 release then. Now, it's up to 3.3. This seems like a growing up release to me; support for JPEG album art finally and native USB support on some players in Rockbox (thought at least on mine it uses the original firmware if plugged in while off). In any case, it has support for bunches of codecs (including, of course, unprotected iTunes). It also has a load of plugins, many of which can be used while playing music, divided into applications, games, and demos. Anyway, enough with the infomercial. All I'm saying is if you have a supported player (more in development!) and want some more out of your MP3 player, check it out.

Edit: July 25, 2009: As an addendum, I really enjoy the playlist management Rockbox brings to my e200. I couldn't do it with the original firmware but using Rockbox I can follow my habit of making custom playlists consisting of songs from different albums. This was sort of possible with the OF, but was fairly painstaking (you had to play songs you wanted in the list and add them to a 'go list').

I really think Facebook should give this hint up front on the photo upload page, and maybe even point you to some helpful tools. You see, as far as I know, the pictures you and others post to Facebook are only stored on Facebook servers in the size you see them. Often enough, though, the original pictures uploaded are bigger than this. Thus, uploading time is wasted when you could just upload the right sized pictures in the first place. The Picasa Facebook plugin does this, for instance, allowing pictures to actually be uploaded using dial-up. Woot!

To the point, the maximum width your photos are displayed at on Facebook is 604 pixels, the maximum height being 604 also. If you're uploading anything smaller than that, don't bother resizing. But if they're bigger than that, you can save some time. So, use your favorite program to size your photos down to this width or height. Or if you have no idea what to use, try Fotosizer for Windows and RapidoResizer for Mac. Linux users, figure it out (you're supposed to be smart).

And as a side note, I think Facebook should seriously add a real yearbook view, where you could view a spread of thumbnails of your friends, since that's what it's named after (yearbook/facebook - see the connection? Check this ZDNet definition for full info - it's actually a bit different take than I have, and in fact I guess I'm wrong about what it's named after, but I still think a yearbook view would be cool).

P.S. If you have a free Flickr account, the max size your photos will ever be viewable at is 1024x768 pixels, I think (and as I remember, I think you might even have to turn that size on). So, you might be able to save some time the same way there.
P.P.S. I'm wondering if your photos are somewhere on the Flickr servers at a larger size than 1024x768 even if you have a free account - maybe if you upgrade to pro, you could get access to these bigger versions. Just speculating. Take the Flickr tip at your own risk.

Edit: July 25, 2009: I re-registered for Flickr today and contacted them about the original file free account to Pro thing. Speaking about Flickr free, I was told this by Natalie at Flickr Customer Care:

Only smaller (resized) images accessible (though the originals are saved in case you upgrade later).

Bingo. Just what I wanted to know. So upload at 1024x768 with that knowledge - if you go Pro, your photos will only be viewable at that resolution max. So, if you think you might go Pro in the future and think this could be an issue, upload accordingly. I personally plan to upload at 1600x1200 or widescreen equivalents, because that's what I've been doing with my photo blog to save upload time (and download time for viewers, now that I think about it).

Edit: July 27, 2009: I just found a way to get at the originals with a free Flickr account. Who knows how long it might last, but here goes (might make a post out of it later). It's the photostream RSS feed (I haven't tested Atom yet). Just stick it into a feed reader that supports attached media (including Firefox's Live Bookmarks) and grab that attached media. It appears to be the original. Test it out right here on my RSS feed. I'm suspecting that maybe Flickr doesn't mind as much about this, but they just make it easy on Pro and call it a Pro feature. In fact, they start you on your way to finding the originals over here by documenting the photo source URLs.