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Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic

Portrait courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.
Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction.

Thomas Jefferson

Portrait of Thomas Jefferson courtesy of the White House.

 

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Allowing Outbound PING and PPTP Connections.

I have been trying to debug an error I noticed in the eventlog for Radio, “Can't read stream because TCP/IP error code 10060 – Connection timed out.” I thought I would use Ping and Tracert but they both timed out. The problem was that IP Routing was not enabled on the firewall.

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Radio Category not rendering

I have spent way too much time over the last two days trying to change the theme templates on two categories. I ended up changing two categories since I think I have a more severe problem with one category. It hasn't updated since 8 October. I found some nice resources that imply that this should all work but I haven't quite figured out when things get updated.

Along the way I figured out how to add and modify my blogroll. Some of the stuff is cool. Some of the stuff took way too much work!

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Justices Take Case on Pledge of Allegiance's 'God' Reference

Justices Take Case on Pledge of Allegiance's 'God' Reference. The Supreme Court's ruling will settle whether the phrase “one nation under God” will remain as it is recited in most classrooms. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

This is a move that will probably due more harm than good. If they move to strike the word “God” they will antagonize many people with a perceived overbearing reach.They may use this case to head off future cases by setting church/state guidelines but I doubt they will go that far. I think it is more likely they will piss off everybody except the lawyers.

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Cristian Vidmar: My Public Weblog

“MyRadioDesk is my first public Radio theme: it resembles a desk with common elements on top: a sheet of paper, a calendar, some post-its, some stamps and so on. Each day is a yellow post-it with entries inside (click the picture to see it real-size).“

This is a pretty cool theme. For kicks I changed my theme for the profession category. Now if I can get Radio to use the new theme.

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Faith Fades Where It Once Burned Strong. In much of Europe the ties of Christianity no longer bind the way they once did and often seem not to bind at all. By Frank Bruni. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

This is an old but true story. It is especially poetic for me since I met a couple of new people from Munich yesterday at our church. They had arrived as part of the Sister Cities of Cincinnati intern program and the host family had brought them to the Vineyard Church. In early August we brought Nina to the Vineyard. If their lives are similar to Nina and probably most of the people in Europe can say that according to the article, they had not been to a church service like this before. I am sure that this host family brought them to this church because they thought it would be fun and relevant  to our lives. Someday they may may start asking themselves why church is not fun and relevant to the people in Europe and what do they need to do to change it.

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Air compressors

A couple of years ago I thought I needed an air compressor but wasn't quite sure why. I bought a paint sprayer that I didn't use. I bought an air nailer and an impact wrench I occasionally use. The most common use of the air compressor is to fill up tires. It seems like all of the tires have a slow leak. In a way I am glad to see all that I have more use for the compressor than I originally thought. The bad news is that by thinking about the air compressor reminds me how much I underestimated the work involved in keeping a farm running.

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Creating the Best User Experience for Active Web Content

“In early 2004, Microsoft will make changes available that will provide a modified experience for users viewing “active” content on web pages. The changed browser will prompt the user before displaying active content that has been coded using <OBJECT> , <EMBED>, or <APPLET>.“

Apple provides the best summary of the changes for me. The fix is to use Javascript to execute the program/object. I guess Eolas owns these tags if their patent claim is upheld. Maybe its just me, but did anyone notice the humor in the fact that a potential prior art, OLE(i.e. Object Linking and Embedding), contains two of the forbidden tags in its name.