April 2011
4 posts
Holy Week Timeline Visualization →
Click to enlarge. Also available as a PDF. Holy Week (or Passion Week) [is] the week that commemorates Jesus’ death and resurrection. Here’s a new visualization we created that…
Dvorak Keyboard Layout on Ubuntu →
Switch to Dvorak layout: sudo loadkeys dvorak
Switch back to U.S.: sudo loadkeys us
That was easy!
An Unlikely Crusader for Cleaning Up the Food... →
— TEDxAustin Robyn O’Brien 2011. O’Brien, Robyn. TEDxAustin. Mar. 2011.
Catching the “Little Things” with BDD →
I’ve often read/heard the following kind of critique comparing TDD (Test-Driven Development) and BDD (Behavior-Driven Development): BDD is great, but unlike TDD, it can’t catch little things like…
March 2011
6 posts
To Follow by Faith Alone… →
My friend Matt recently posted an interesting essay entitled The Mathematics of an Idea. He opens with a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin: To follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.
If I may be so bold as to question one of the Founding Fathers, I think Mr. Franklin misunderstood the nature of faith. Faith is not a feeling, nor is it divorced from reason. Faith is an
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The Virtues of Saint Anselm →
The last sentence, in particular, reminds me of the complaints laid against Pope John Paul II:
It is certain that from the moment he assumed a religious habit to the time of his elevation to the episcopacy, he devoted himself to the cultivation of every virtue, and by word and example sowed these virtues in the minds of others whenever possible. … He was often even blamed and suffered in his...
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Saint Ronan: Accusation and Vindicatation →
Saint Ronan, please pray for Father Corapi and his accuser.
Shedding tears in abundance, and with violent contortions, she cast herself at the king’s feet, demanding justice to be executed against Ronan, who had devoured her daughter, and who had made her husband a sorcerer. … “I have two furious bulldogs,” shouted the king, “and they shall soon prove if this man be innocent; let them be...
The Real History of the Crusades →
Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are…
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Homeless Alaskans Help Run Catholic Shelter in... →
As a volunteer, Payne has a small bedroom in the staff quarters, which accommodates up to 10 people. He said some people “choose to use the shelter as a flophouse for a hangover” and addiction and mental health problems plague many guests. But if you’re motivated, “this is an awesome place for people wanting to help themselves.”
— Homeless Alaskans Help Run Catholic Shelter in Effort to...
Contraception Is Not the Solution to Abortion →
Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.
— Chesterton, G.K. Illustrated London News. 23 Oct 1909. The…
February 2011
15 posts
Nigel Marsh: How to Make Work-Life Balance Work →
— How to Make Work-Life Balance Work. Marsh, Nigel. TEDxSydney). May 2010. via @bcelenza.
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Does Islam Need a Luther or a Pope? →
It has become the conventional wisdom … since 9/11 that the trouble with Islam is that, unlike Christianity, it never had a Protestant Reformation. The idea seems to be this: Christianity was (so it is held) rigid and authoritarian before Luther and company came along and paved the way for liberal democracy, science, and all things modern and good; Islam’s problem is that it remains stuck...
Last Comments on Lying for Jesus →
I’m willing to bet such a fib is a venial sin. But I’m even more willing to bet that I am eager to think all my lies are venial sins and to look for justifications for lying more than I am willing…
In Wisconsin, a Preview of Moral Battles to Come →
Catholics’ discussions of these issues often focus on the rights of workers and the support of the rights of workers to organize for fair wages and benefits, but the reality of the union system we…
JavaScript Web/Desktop Application Frameworks →
Here is a brief overview of some of the most popular JavaScript Application Frameworks for web and desktop application development. Mobile frameworks, like Sencha Touch, jQTouch, jQuery Mobile and
U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, “By... →
U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, “By Mistake” Man, with each move this administration makes, it feels like we creep closer toward the future proposed by Zamiatin and his protégés (Huxley
Comparative Evil: Hitler’s Gas Chambers and... →
The full evil of Stalin still hasn’t sunk in. … Our culture has not assimilated the magnitude of his crimes. Which is perhaps why the cannibalism jolted me out of any illusion that meaningful…
Mubarak Resigns on the Feast of Our Lady of... →
Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt. 8 Feb. 2011. © 2011 Mona Seif.
Our Lady of Lourdes. Grotte de Massabielle, Lourdes, France. © 2005 Manuel González Olaechea y Franco.
Contradicting Sedevacantism →
The Sedevacantist arguments have been contradicted by a continuous miracle since 25 May, 1966.
How to Install Ruby Enterprise Edition and... →
INSTALL SYSTEM PREREQUISITES Install the prerequisite development headers. If this is a production system, make note of all the packages installed, for future removal. # yum install...
Work Is Not Prayer →
“Work is Prayer” is not only not a quote from St. Benedict; it is also a misleading and harmful maxim for the Christian life.
Work Is Prayer: Not! – Part I. Kardong, Terrence, OSB. Assumption…
“Fundacatholics” (An Open Reply to Secret Vatican... →
Though liberals are arrogant scoffers, fundamentalists are self-righteous accusers. Both are satanic but the latter is worse. I know first-hand. I have been both more than once.
Kassie, don’t…
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Egyptian Christians Protect Praying Muslims →
Fr. Robert Barron: What Christians Mean by “God” →
A Low-Impact Woodland Home →
Simon Dale’s hobbit-home was built with reused materials and fallen timbers, for approximately $4,500. The reciprocal roof is brilliant, strong enough to support a “living roof” and…
January 2011
23 posts
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Install WordPress on CentOS/RHEL in Five Minutes... →
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How to Move a Github Repository to Your Private... →
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Time for Catholic-Muslim Dialog to Get Real →
— Fr. Daniel Madigan, S.J., on al-Azhar’s freeze on dialogue with the Vatican. via @catholicherald.
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Chinese Government Threatens to Close Catholic... →
via @RaymondArroyo
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“This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful,...”
– Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
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“A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad,...”
– St. Anthony of Egypt (via dixisti)
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“Maybe the greatest threat to the Church is not heresy, not dissent, not...”
– Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York (via dixisti)
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Android Tablets Are "Vapor", BlackBerry Playbook... →
Regardless of your opinion of the Android platform for mobile devices, there’s no arguing the point Tim Cook, acting CEO of Apple, made during the company’s earning’s call earlier this week: “The next generation of Android tablets, which is what you discussed primarily at CES — there’s nothing shipping yet… Generally they lack performance specs, they lack prices,...
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Arrest of Abortionist Kermit Gosnell Reveals House... →
Brooke Baldwin interviewed the prosecutor on the case, Seth Williams. … He spoke of the “house of horrors” they found … where these dead children were kept in bottles of formaldehyde. … that they found “severed feet” and “body parts” everywhere, including in the same refrigerator where staff kept their lunch. … that the doctor was paid on a sliding scale...
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Jon Stewart’s Voice of Reason →
A little reason is needed indeed. Since when is the left non-violent, rhetoric aside? Has everyone forgotten the nearly forty years of mass infanticide the Democrats have been promoting, at times even compelling us all to fund? Call it what you like, but over one third of Americans conceived since 1973 are dead, and 41% of New York City’s newest citizens are consistently killed. “A...
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Venerable Pope John Paul II The Great to Be... →
… May 1, 2011, the Second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday. w00t! Venerable Pope John Paul The Great, pray for us.
Three SEC Coaches' Secret Sorrow →
We learn how to live again and get up and dress ourselves again and be good parents to the kids who are still living. But in the end, a part of us died with our kids. That heartache will be a train we ride to the day we die.
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Egyptian Muslims to Act as "Human Shields" at... →
“I know it might not be safe, yet it’s either we live together, or we die together, we are all Egyptians,” Cherine Mohamed, a 50 year old house wife said.
For Youssef, Egyptians should attend regardless of their faith as “we all have Christians as part of our family. I am a Muslim but I’m sure my great grandfather was a Christian.”
The goodwill has been well received by the...
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“Of course the real truth is that science has introduced no new principle into...”
– G. K. Chesterton. All Things Considered. London: Methuen, 1908.
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Free JavaScript Tools for Visualizing Hierarchies
I’m hacking away at an interactive genealogy chart for my family. Not looking to reinvent the wheel, I found two promising tools:
The Google Visualization API “allows you to create visualizations and reporting applications over structured data and helps integrate these directly into your website or on a Gadget.”
The JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit “provides tools for creating...
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Peanut Butter & Blueberry Smoothie
Combine the following:
3 tablespoons peanut butter
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 scoop whey protein powder (optional)
1-2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder (optional)
10 ice cubes
milk, soymilk, or apple juice
… in a 32-ounce mug. Fill mug to an inch below the rim with milk, soymilk or apple juice. Mix with an immersion blender on low speed until ice cubes are crushed...
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“In reading [G.K.] Chesterton, … I did not know what I was letting myself in for....”
– C.S. Lewis on G.K. Chesterton, as told by Kevin Belmonte, author of Defiant Joy: The Remarkable Life & Impact of G.K. Chesterton and The Quotable Chesterton: The Wit and Wisdom of G.K. Chesterton. via The Huffington Post.
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Lives of the Irish Saints: Saint Ronan of Locronan →
John O’Hanlon’s exhaustive work is now available for FREE via the Internet Archive.
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Lives of the Irish Saints: Saint Kevin of... →
John O’Hanlon’s exhaustive work is now available for FREE via the Internet Archive.
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Lives of the Irish Saints: Saint Brigid of Kildare →
John O’Hanlon’s exhaustive work is now available for FREE via the Internet Archive.
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San Francisco's Happy Meal Ban →
Goodbye Lady Liberty, Hello Nanny State!
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Catholic Health Association Defies Phoenix Bishop... →
Please include Sr. Carol Keehan and the CHA in your prayers, that they may repent and embrace Catholic ethical health care guidelines. Their public rejection of Catholic teaching and defiance toward the USCCB and the Pope — in this case and in regard to health care reform — scandalizes the laity, puts Sr. Keehan at risk of automatic excommunication and the CHA at risk of losing its Catholic...
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A Grieving Father's Thoughts on Suffering
I originally composed the following letter in response to an inquiry from an old friend regarding the deaths of two of our children. I share it now — despite much anxiety about such public vulnerability — in hope that these words may comfort other grieving parents.
Thank you for your message and prayers. The past two years have been very difficult, if I may understate a little. Burying Mary...
December 2010
9 posts
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Wikileaks: "Information Vandalism" not... →
WikiLeaks says that it is dedicated to fighting censorship, so a casual observer might assume that it is more or less a conventional liberal enterprise committed to enlightened democratic policies. But on closer inspection that is not quite the case. In fact, WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of...
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Happy Feast of the Holy Family! Merry Christmas!
Today is the second of twelve days of Christmas, which ends with the Feast of the Epiphany (Jan. 6).