Three Strikes and You're Not Out

So I've been worshipping God outside lately (read: skipping church to go on climbing trips) and thus haven't heard a sermon of any kind in quite a little while. Returning briefly to the fold, as it were, I heard probably the best ever.

The pastor talked about teaching his daughter to play baseball. He bought the biggest whiffle ball and the biggest plastic bat he could find. First he asked her to swing the bat a few times so he could tell where the bat tended to go. Then he threw the ball in that area to maximize her chance of hitting it. Strike one. He moves closer so the ball's easier to hit. Strike two. Moves closer. Strikes three through five. He throws the ball at the bat. PING! (Or is that "thump"?) A home-run hit and she runs the bases -- the wrong way. Dad cheers her on all the same.

The pastor tied this all together by reminding us that even Abraham, the "father of many nations" and a hero of the church, had several strikes against him. He fathered Ishmael with his wife's servant Hagar, laughed at God's promise to enable him to have children with Sarah, and more. Not to overextend the metaphor, but God still gave Abraham plenty of chances at bat. Considering he's now one of the most respected figures in the world's three major monotheistic religions, you might say Abraham hit a home run.

" scooby snack tea parties near 2571 "

... is about the most intriguing spam subject line I've ever received.

Bookmark: National Motorists Association

National Motorists Association

We support more reasonable speed limits, better driver training, improved motorist-to-motorist courtesy, and sensible, easily understood regulations. We oppose heavy-handed enforcement, unfair motorist taxation, speed traps, kangaroo traffic courts, and government edicts that take away your rights as a consumer and user of automobiles. We're working for the establishment of traffic laws based on engineering principles and public consensus.

Church Habits Now Prime Political Predictor

USATODAY.com - Churchgoing closely tied to voting patterns

Voters who say they go to church every week usually vote for Republicans. Those who go to church less often or not at all tend to vote Democratic.
Forget the gender gap. The "religion gap" is bigger, more powerful and growing. The divide isn't between Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Gentiles. Instead, on one side are those of many faiths who go to services, well, religiously: Catholics who attend Mass without fail, evangelical Christians and mainline Protestants who show up for church rain or shine, some Orthodox Jews. On the other side are those who attend religious services only occasionally or never.
... Meanwhile, Democrats haven't reached a consensus on a strategy to narrow the religion gap and regain voters the party has lost. ... [Some] argue that voters who frequently attend church would be receptive to an appeal that recasts some traditional Democratic issues -- protecting the environment as the stewardship of God's creation, for instance.

1. It's no longer the gender gap (basically, women vote Democratic, men Republican), it's the religion gap. As my favorite pointy-eared nonhuman would say, fascinating.

2. It's the Republicans who should latch onto environmentalism as stewardship of God's creation. Here's a quiz: Which two words that describe a) "The protection, preservation, management, or restoration of wildlife and of natural resources" (source link) and b) a major political orientation have the same root word?

(Hint in the form of another question: which Republican president established the US Forest Service, five national parks, 51 wildlife refuges and 150 national forests? Answer)

Curing Human Aging: The Engineering Approach

Bookmark: Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS): A practical way to cure human aging

The simple explanation:

... [O]ur ultimate goal is the availability to the entire human race of technology that will restore them to whatever degree of youth they desire and keep them there for as long as they want. That's a bit stronger than simply "a cure for aging" -- it says that the cure should be available (at a price that they can afford, of course) to absolutely anyone who wants it. ... [W]hat "youth" means for our purposes is physical robustness and vitality.

The less-simple explanation:

SENS is a detailed plan for curing human aging. SENS is an engineering project, in the same way that medicine is a branch of engineering. The key to SENS is the appreciation that aging is best viewed as a set of progressive changes in body composition at the molecular and cellular level, caused as side-effects of essential metabolic processes. These changes are therefore best thought of as an accumulation of "damage", which becomes pathogenic above a certain threshold of abundance. The traditional gerontological approach to life extension, namely to try to slow down this accumulation of damage, is a misguided strategy, firstly because it requires us to improve biological processes that we do not adequately understand, and secondly because it can even in principle only retard aging rather than reverse it. An even more short-termist alternative is the geriatric approach, namely to try to stave off pathology in the face of accumulating damage; this is a losing battle because the continuing accumulation of damage makes pathology more and more inescapable. Instead, the engineering (SENS) strategy is not to interfere with metabolism per se, but to repair or obviate the accumulating damage and thereby indefinitely postpone the age at which it reaches pathogenic levels.

World's First Commercial Spaceflight: June 21

According to Slashdot, the world's first commercial spaceflight on June 21 will send one lucky pilot over 100km above terra firma.

I'm so glad this is happening in my lifetime. Moonbase One, here I come.

Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel Tips and Tricks

Bookmark: Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel Tips and Tricks

There's some tips in here that apply to other digital cameras, like using a cheap drugstore ear syringe to replace an expensive dust blower and using cheap cellphone hands-free kits to replace expensive remote shutter release cords.

It's also nifty to read about the firmware hack that nearly turns a ~$800 camera into a ~$1,250 camera, in feature-set terms. I haven't developed my view on this matter fully, but my initial reaction is to say that I don't like companies that create products by crippling existing ones, as is the case with the Digital Rebel. To wit, from Slashdot:

Canon has so far said little on the hack but certainly cannot be happy with its potential effect on sales. This is, however, a reality that more corporations are having to confront. In an era where programming labour is relatively cheap and computer connectivity more frequent can artificial, marketing-driven, barriers between technology products, last?

But then a possibly good point ...

Canon has so far said little on the hack but certainly cannot be happy with its potential effect on sales.

That arguement is rediculous. What part of Canon's market that will shell out for that camera will apply this hack? Probably almost none of it, if they can find it or understand it. So that leaves the likes of the slashdot crowd, and that really isn't a big enough group to put a dent into Canon's sales.

... followed by another, contrasting, possibly good point:

What part of the normal music market will learn to download MP3s off the internet? Probably almost none of it, if they can find or understand them. So that leaves the likes of the Slashdot crowd, and that really isn't a big enough group to put a dent into cultural acceptance. Oh wait...

Ha!