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For quite some time I’ve been reading Judah’s blog at Kineti L’Tziyon, and I very much appreciate his balanced but passionate views on Torah, especially as its commandments apply to believers in HaMashiach* (Jesus of Nazareth). In particular, he’s willing to admit that he doesn’t know everything, and that his theology is not all quite as tidily sorted out as he’d like. Since my theology isn’t as tidily sorted out as I’d like, either, this strikes a chord.
What’s more, both he and I are .NET developers. (In point of fact, I found his blog from his profile on CodeProject.) Though he specializes in C# and I in (gasp! the horror!) VB, we still get along: I can write C# fairly well, and I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s at least conversant in VB.
So when I read that he was starting a big long ambitious project to map the traditional 613 commandments in Torah (using C# and a tool called GraphViz), I got all excited, and started plotting how I could get a piece of the action. As it happened, Judah was open to the idea of putting the project on CodePlex, so once it was up, I joined and began making changes (hint: scroll to the bottom to see the small piece I’ve done, or just go to the project’s homepage at commandments.codeplex.com for a sampling). My first SVN commit was this last Saturday, and I plan to be adding a commandment or so each week, along with occasional changes to the code proper.
Hopefully, this will enable Judah and I to finish up in something less than the originally foreseen year and a quarter. 
And if anyone else wants to join in, there’s still lots of room! You do need to be able to write at least a little C# code, although it cannot be said that the coding side of it is all that complicated, and you need to be able to work SVN. If that describes you, come on in, the water’s fine!
*Note: I am not an expert in Hebrew – far from it – but to the best of my knowledge that is how one can, or might, or does, or at times in the past has, spelt that particular title, which translates to “The Anointed One”.
Tonight I was looking at a sibling’s post on a personality type forum (yes, there’s one for everything, isn’t there!) and noticed an interesting-looking link in someone’s signature.
Not only did it look interesting, it was interesting. So interesting was it that I got into the act with a so-called "Johari window", and added the further Nohari window as well. These two tools are used to help someone – in this case, me – figure out their strengths and weaknesses. I selected six words that I think describe me in each one, but the main power of these techniques is in what other people say about you.
Could you please go there and help me out by picking 5-6 words from each list? Thanks.
The series on Social Gospel will alternate with other posts for a while, so expect the next post or so to resume the series, then pause again, and so forth.
Like it says on the tin, Get Satisfaction is about consumers (people, in other words) getting satisfaction from firms (big, faceless corporations, in other words). But this site isn’t about ranting on how rotten Brand X is for not answering your complaints, then suing them for big bucks. It’s about fixing problems.
Get Satisfaction works by providing a slick forum for customers to ask questions and company reps to answer them. But it’s not just a forum: you can see the current status of problems, compliment a company, make suggestions — all sorts of things. Votes show you what issues are hot, what answers are cool, and what people are feeling like (angry, unconcerned, excited… etc).
But as I’ve said before, and as I’ll say again, don’t take my word for it, check it out!
And an extra bonus site for those of you who are frustrated by non-tech-savvy friends: letmegooglethatforyou.com is a splendid gag site. Try it out at http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=trebuchet+plans, then send links to it to all those annoying friends next time they have a question. (What can I say? I like trebuchets!)
Every now and then, as I surf the vastness of electronic spider-dom, I come across some brilliantly witty forum signature or about page. I have decided I’d like to collect some of them, and here are some of the best I’ve found so far. When I find more (or have a better memory), I expect I’ll post a sequel to this.
- Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
(from CodeProject) - Today’s lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don’t attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots.
– Robert Royall
(spotted, again, on CodeProject) - You’re right.
Those facts you’ve laid out totally contradict the wild ramblings I pulled off the backs of cereal boxes.
(CodeProject, on Shog9‘s signature; now, alas, gone) - If I am nobody and nobody is perfect does that mean that I am perfect? Yes, it does. (Pet Dragons forum)
- All the jokes hit me like a wave. I was caught in the undertow of humor and had to giggle my way out. (Todd Agnew forum)
- No trees were harmed in the production of this post, however a huge number of electrons were horribly inconvenienced. (again, Todd Agnew forum)
A note on the title: according to the most fabulously useful online tool known to mankind, "quire" is an archaic term for quiver, and as such is somewhat of a generic term for "container". I felt it suitable. You are not free to correct me.
Every so often, I talk about programs I like, sites I use, or gadgets I think are cool. Of course, since I’m on a limited budget here, the gadget side is likely to be a little thin. But hey, got to make the best of it, right?
One of the downright coolest sites I know is Powerset — not so much because their current capabilities are that great, although they are pretty cool, but because of what the technology will turn into soon. The basic deal is that you can ask direct questions that don’t work on regular search engines at all, and have them answered sensibly, often with a direct answer. Right now Powerset uses Wikipedia as its source for information, but at some time in the future (and here’s the point), they plan to expand to indexing the whole Internet, like an ordinary search engine, only better, because you’ll be able to ask sensible questions and have them answered.
But hey, don’t take my word for it: Powerset has lots of good example questions, so head on over there and try it out!
