Conky version 1.0

It's finished! I'm still working on some details: the icons are ok, but I wonder if I could cut this down a bit. I also want to divide this up to all 4 corners of my screen.

Anyway, this is the conky in #! on my laptop. The smudged content in the top is my hostname 'on' my ESSID. If the ESSID isn't available (e.g. no wireless connection), it prints " is disconnected"

Nuts, Conky isn't working right

Here's a snippet of a Conky config I've been working on.

Dependency Injection and Flex

So, a quick note on the progress I've made with Flex. First of all, I wanted a tool to highlight text. So...I spent 3 weeks working through tutorials and examples from some brilliant coders who have already paved this way, worked with several different libraries, and finally found that all my work was for naught; enter, FlexLib. It not only had a great highlighting class, but also contained some moveable Panels, and a nice extensible Tab Navigator...sigh..all that work down the drain.

Anyway, I've heard about Dependency Injections a lot lately, and I finally decided to research what it's about. Wow, I never realized how simple a concept it would be. Having been exposed to different design patterns like Factory Method, this was extremely easy to assimilate.

Dependency Injection works very well with Flex interfaces, and particularly well with Factories. If I have an object A which depends on object B, I could have A instantiate B and maintain a reference to it. Unfortunately, this creates a dependency within A upon B:

private var bInstance:B;
...
bInstance = new B();
bInstance.foo();


In this case, A has a definite dependency upon B's implementation. If B changes 'foo()' to anything else, A will break.

We can partially solve this via a interface, in which A and B agree on B's required methods. In this case, B utilizes an interface, BI, which instructs B to always implement 'foo()'. Thus, A can access B via its instance:

private var bInstance:BI;
...
bInstance = new B();
bInstance.foo(); //guaranteed since bInstance is an instance of type BI


But we still have a problem: A is still relying on the base class of B. What if we wanted to break B into different objects, and 'B' was no longer a valid name? Moreover, what if we moved B to a different library? Enter a factory.

Rather than A creating B, even via its interface, what if the code calling A passed in a reference to B, via its interface? For this, we'll add two new classes. 'Factory' has a 'createBI' function that returns a reference to B via its interface, BI. FooBar is a class which creates A. In this class, the code to create A might look something like this:

a = new A(Factory.createBI());


Whereas the constructor for A might look like this:

private bInst:BI;
public function A(bInst:BI):void {
  this.bInst = bInst;
}


From this point, we've broken the dependency of A to B, and created a new dependency from A to BI. This is a better design and is more extensible: should we need to have different variations of B, as long as they implement the BI interface, A can utilize them.

What's more, 'FooBar' injected the dependencies into A.

That's all there is to it.

Now...my question is...how far can you take this??

Happy Easter -- Christ is risen indeed!

What a wonderful time of the year for us, as Christians, to remember the glorious resurrection! We worship on Sundays because this was the day of Christ's resurrection from the dead, but it's also, in my mind, important to set time aside on the anniversary of our blessed hope.

I've been thinking about the resurrection more this past year, and I have a thought: one of the strongest proofs of Christ's resurrection lies in the changes the Holy Spirit wrought in the lives of His disciples and those who lived in the ancient world.

At the time of Christ's death, His disciples had fled. The oligarchical religious authorities had, it seemed, succeeded in squelching what they viewed as a blasphemous trend and an affront to their authority. Jesus' friends had abandoned Him immediately after His arrest, and, on that Sunday so long ago, were in hiding. They feared the reprisal of the authorities against those Jesus had taken into His "inner circle," so they sat in their rooms, cowardly and afraid for their own lives.

Don't get me wrong -- I would have done the same...we all would have.

But, within a very short amount of time, these men swept through Israel, Palestine, Asia Minor and to even farther reaches of the known world, spreading the glorious news of Christ's death and resurrection and forgiveness for sin. They baptized and made disciples wherever they went, turning the Jewish society completely on its head. Those who had lived and breathed a fiercely xenophobic and merit-based religious lifestyle were now proclaiming the forgiveness of sins fully apart from works to those outside their respective society. Faith and belief were no longer restricted to a few select practitioners, men, women, soldiers, etc. Instead, all, even small children, were welcomed into the Church.

For those who would purport the existence of explicit "misogynism" in the early church, I would ask they read the New Testament and consider the words of Christ, Who, in a strictly patristic society, reached out to women with His teachings; as well as the apostle Paul, who, though recognizing the difference in role and responsibility between the sexes, also acclaims specific women working alongside men in the church. I would also encourage them to compare Christianity in its day to the other religious institutions at the time: it stands apart in its acceptance of all from different walks of life, and its claims of the abject uselessness of meritorious acts.

In a very short amount of time, the world was drastically and fundamentally changed. No longer basing their religious standing on their capacity to keep Law, give charitably, or act in accordance with goodness, Christians were, rather, displaying chartity and good deeds stemming from an inward change. Rather than working to earn merit, their focus was on being thankful for a gift given while they were still sinners (Romans 3:8), and spreading this good news to everyone they came near.

Christianity spread like a wild fire in its early days, in the face of the most perverse and grotesque persecution and opposition known to man. Under the reign of Domitian, Christian persecution became a matter of state policy; under the reign of Nero, Christians were tortured and ravished as a matter of entertainment. The Jewish religious authorities persecuted and murdered early leaders of the Christian church, casting others into jail.

We know the tomb is empty. Christ rose from the grave (halleluiah!) and we in Him we have a blessed hope. But we need remember one thing: no explanation, no physical evidence, no arguments are sufficient to explain this unprecedented phenomenon. It's not enough for the world to present Jesus' bones and say, "here he is!" Such an occurrence falls drastically short of the historical evidence we have of such a massive personal transformation on behalf of His followers.

What more can we ask for? The proof of Jesus' resurrection and His sending the Holy Spirit need not lie in manifestations of "spiritual gifts;" it need not be sought in an "experience" or a "feeling" or emotion; it need not be based upon the display of miraculous "healings" during televangelist gatherings. Though I don't discount gifts, feelings, or the power of the Lord to heal, we far too often seek for reassurance of His reality in things which focus us inward:

1. I have this gift
2. I feel this feeling/sensation
3. I was healed

Instead, let us turn to the real and historical Jesus as our reassurance and hope. We have the ultimate proof of His resurrection: an empty grave, a missing body, 500+ witnesses, and the greatest spiritual conversion mankind could ever witness.

He has risen indeed!! Happy Easter!!

Issues Etc -- Does Satan Exist?

I listened to a great review of the ABC Panel which discussed the existence of Satan. It's in two parts:






These are well worth listening to.

A few Ofelia Pics

Ok, I wanted to post a few pictures of my kiddo:

She's just so friggin' cute!















She's trying to read like her daddy. Her mommy is also now reading too!















We had a little date to the library on Saturday--she was ready for the blustery weather:















Here she is, trying to distract her daddy while he's sick and working from home:

Musings on Palm Sunday

I had a thought this morning while at church.

Today's the day the Christian church remembers Christ's entrance into Jerusalem, the week before He was crucified by the Romans and rose again from the grave. His entrance into the city was marked by excitement, rejoicing, and (wait for it...) people waving palm branches ().

I remember past Palm Sundays in several churches, watching palm-branch-bearing children parade up and down the sanctuary aisles, while proud parents beamed from their pews, and music and songs rose up from the music team. All in all, they were somewhat emotionally-overcharged services ().

The situation in Jerusalem, however, is pretty hard to understand. During the Triumphal Entry (Palm Sunday), the crowds were ecstatic. They were energetic, excited, and generally overjoyed to welcome Jesus into their city. He entered the gates riding a donkey while they shouted praises (Mark 11).

Less than a week later, they chose a known murderer and insurrectionist over Christ, while shouting "Crucify Him!" (Mark 15). He was sentenced to death by the Romans in accordance with their collective will.

Why the difference?

From what I've learned in my short (and quite inadequate) studies, the nation of Israel (in Christ's day) were not looking for a Savior Who, in sacrificing Himself, would pay the penalty for the sins of God's chosen people. They were awaiting a conquering Messiah who would take his place on David's throne, cast out their Roman invaders, and set Israel in their rightful place. They wanted glorification for their nation-state, and freedom from the Roman government. Christ's entry into Jerusalem sparked off this "revolutionary" mentality. The people were, I believe, looking to Jesus as this Messiah, and their reaction, though ignorant, was based on a self-serving and inadequate understanding of His purpose.

So...with this in mind, why do churches have children parading up and down the aisles on this Sunday, waving palm branches in a [potentially] misguided remembrance of sinful ignorance? Is this a correct observance and remembrance of Christ fulfilling prophecy foretold hundreds of years before? Should we not, perhaps, spend this Sunday reflecting on how we, as fallen human beings, will try to change Christ's purpose into something other than the incredible, and most amazing gift we could ever be given? The nation of Israel wanted Him to free them from the Romans; He was sent to free us from our sin and bridge the chasm between us and the Holy Lord. Their purposes and the Will of the Lord were at odds, and it behoves us to remember this and reflect upon Who Christ IS, and not Who we want Him to be.

Edit: My good buddy Kyle brought up a few good points to consider. Here are some passages to think through as I further ponder the discussion (emphasis mine, obviously):

Luke 19:41-44: 'And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation."'

This would, if nothing else, support the idea that the masses were praising out of expectation of something other than the truth. But...(again, emphasis mine)...

Luke 19:37-40: As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples." He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."

It seems, even though they were praising out of ignorance, they were still praising. This is certainly something to consider, and perhaps have a level of understanding for them. Heck, even the disciples didn't understand why Christ had come. They were likewise expecting Him to take His place on the throne of Israel as their conquering Messiah. But...

I think the primary concern I have is the re-enactment itself. I'm not questioning the act of worship itself, but rather the context in which it is taking place. We worship in truth because God has revealed it to us. They worshipped in ignorance because God had not yet revealed it to them.

Of course, I could be making a lot of nothing, and I certainly don't condemn those churches in the past... :-)