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Tuesday, January 30th, 2007
Well, in beta, at least.
This is so freakin cool. For those that don't remember, but
Reinvigorate was
the coolest stats package a few years ago, and it was 100% free.
Due to hosting issues (Acta Divina went under), Sean took it down, and has spent the past 2 and a half years perfecting it, and now I have been offered the Beta Registration (and of course I have taken him up on it :D).
On a more personal note, let me just say how brilliant Sean is. This is a dude who not only has a GREAT eye for design and user interface and interaction, but he is also an insanely smart programmer.
Not happy with the current PHP image rendering algorithms, he actually wrote his own PHP extension that handles curves and aliasing like nobodies business.
The guy has brains leaking out of his freaking ears.
So is the website statistics arena going to be dominated in a Sean vs.
Shaun battle?
I think both will have their home, one being a service, the other being a product, each with it's own set of pro's and con's.
2007 is bringing some great stuff so far, and I am really excited about Reinvigorate being back.
» Nate Cavanaugh @ 9:45 am
Monday, January 29th, 2007
Well, it seems as of late I have been reading quite a bit about so-called "empirical" minds criticizing prayer for it's lack of scientific efficacy.
To be honest, it's a bit misleading, IMO.
Here is the problem. Prayer is, at it's simplest, a request. It is not necessarily a request made of a deity, but that is the word we have colloquially attributed to asking God for things.
But, and this is important, it is a request.
Is ANY request scientifically verifiable?
Whenever someone claims that a prayer has been answered, there is always some schmo who says "Well, that would have happened anyways".
And perhaps they're right.
But that could easily be applied to any granted request.
Perhaps I was going to get the book I wanted for Christmas whether I said anything or not to my wife, and perhaps I wasn't.
Also, what it seems some people are looking for with prayer is some sort of repeatable, observable phenomenon, when there is not any other interpersonal request that we ask for that.
I can write a letter to Bill Gates asking for a million dollars, and I could send this letter to him a million times, and I may get a million nos. Or I could get 1 yes.
But would I ever get 2 yes's?
And would this lack of repeatable, observable phenomenon somehow prove that Bill Gates doesn't exist, or that asking is pointless, or has no effect?
Like with
ANY requests made, each one is unique for a variety of reasons, and to try to apply science to yet another problem outside of it's realm is incredibly narrow-minded to an almost autistic extreme.
Again, this is not trying to prove that prayer works, but rather to say that it is empirically impossible to judge.
Yet that lack of empirical impossibility does not disprove anything.
And
THIS is the problem I have with most of the morons out there who judge everything through a scientific lens.
Science does not explain everything. It cannot. It's tool set is too ill-equipped, and it's craftsmen too inept.
There are immeasurable realities.
And accepting that does not impede scientific progress, but rather gives it more power, as does properly wielding any tool.
But measuring a distance with a hammer does not make the hammer or the measurer more powerful, but more limited because the exploration for a better tool is stopped.
And when science refuses to accept it's limitations, it impedes the progress to finding the proper and right tools for the job.
Wow, that was a bit of a ramble.
» Nate Cavanaugh @ 11:16 pm
Sunday, January 07th, 2007
While I am pretty much now a jQuery fanboy, Prototype still has a foothold in the web, and many people still want/need to use it.
Lately, at
work I have been having to provide developer access to both Prototype and jQuery.
As another proof of jQuery's awesomeness, John went ahead and namespaced jQuery's code base. What this means is that you can very easily avoid conflicts with other libraries.
Yahoo does this with YUI (and while kudos to them for doing it, I am going to post later on why I
loathe the way they do it).
However, Prototype, it all it's shortsighted glory, fails to namespace. I'm not sure why, and perhaps because it is easier to use the global namespace, but it really makes using it a pain.
Until now. I have gone ahead and namespaced Prototype. The version I am using is version 1.5.0 RC2. If anyone cares, I could namespace version 1.4.0, but we'll see if anyone cares.
So what does this mean? Well now, you can easily rename any of the '$' functions so as not to conflict with other libraries.
You can grab the namespaced Prototype
here. At the very bottom, you'll notice a few lines like so:
/*
---------------------------------
Function naming
---------------------------------
*/
var $ = Prototype.$;
var $A = Prototype.$A;
var $H = Prototype.$H;
var $R = Prototype.$R;
var $F = Prototype.$F;
var $$ = Prototype.$$;
You can now easily rename just those functions without breaking the rest of the script. Now, there may be cleaner, better ways to do this, but there is already an existing Prototype object, and IMHO it makes the most sense to place those functions in there. I'd love to hear any other thoughts though...
*Update*
I've gone ahead and updated the code. You'll notice that there is a lot longer list of var declarations. Basically, this is because I utilized a method of namespacing that was mentioned on the Rails development group, by placing the majority of Prototype into an anonymous function.
The way I have done it here allows you to easily rename each of the objects, while also not breaking any existing Prototype based code.
Hope it helps :)
» Nate Cavanaugh @ 2:43 pm
Monday, January 01st, 2007
Just a quick post to explain why atheism is actually stupid, and requires as much faith, if not much more, to be an atheist.
All atheists posit what's called a universal negative. A universal negative requires absolute knowledge (omniscience) whereas a universal positive may not require that.
For instance, let's say I am in a building with 4 rooms, and I have only been in 1 room. In order to say that every room is empty, I would have to have knowledge of all 4 rooms. I would need to know the entirety of what I am claiming to know.
However, to state the opposite, that the building is not empty, I would at the very least only need to know about one room.
So, in essence, any time an atheist claims that there is absolutely no God, they are claiming absolute and full knowledge of the universe (omniscience). If they are not claiming absolute knowledge, than they are going off of faith, but in fact, since they could never EVER know for sure that universal negative, then they are requiring much more faith than a person who claims there is a God (because finding out if there is a God may not require absolute knowledge).
But hey, I don't need to say it, it was written quite a long time ago "the fool says in his heart 'There is no God'" (Psalm 14:1)
» Nate Cavanaugh @ 7:43 pm
Friday, December 22nd, 2006
I buried my father yesterday.
God, I miss him. My dad was/is my hero. My father passed away last Friday, surrounded by his family and friends.
For those that don't know, my dad has been fighting kidney cancer for the past 5 years, and he fought long and hard, but in the end, God wanted him home.
How and when my dad passed was quite an amazing story.
Thursday night, the 14th, my mom called and said that the nurses were saying he had an hour to two hours left to live. Jessica and I live about an hour and a half away, without traffic. We made it through rush hour traffic in an hour and 15 minutes.
Of course, in typical Mike-style, he was going when he wanted. We were told it was going to be any minute, and so we all stayed at the hospital overnight.
My dad had a stroke this past August, and has been in varying levels of awareness ever since, but this last night, he was thankfully unaware.
My wife and I needed to run some errands on Friday afternoon (we wanted to take a shower and get a few hours of sleep) so we went up to my parents house. We were told that it was unlocked so we could get in. We get there, and everything was locked.
Thank goodness, though. Had we made it inside, we never would have gotten the call to get back.
My brother called me, and told me to hurry back, because it didn't look good. So we race back, going super fast with our hazards on and driving on the shoulder. We make it into the parking lot and my other brother pulls in behind us. We run into the critical care unit, and about a minute behind us my brother walks in.
My mom bends down and tells my dad that everyone is there. And within 30-60 seconds, my dad left this earth.
At that moment, I felt like I was hit in the face with a baseball bat. I will never forget the feeling of fear, pain and hurt that I felt at that moment, but also joy that my dad was now in a better place.
The Sunday before that, my dad spoke for the last time. My wife and I were visiting him, and I bent down and told my dad I loved him, and with great effort, he told me that he loved me too. And that was the last words he said to me and to anyone ever again.
I am going to miss this amazing man who taught me so much. I am going to miss my role model, my dad, my friend.
Yesterday, I buried my father, but I know I am going to see him again. I was able to speak at my dad's funeral, and I have included below what I said, and I will leave with that.
_____________
Austin O'Malley once said "An Englishman thinks sitting down, a Frenchman thinks standing, an American thinks pacing, and an Irishman thinks afterwards".
My dad was definitely Irish.
Austin O'Malley also said "The worst misfortune that can happen to an ordinary man is to have an extraordinary father."
My dad loved quotes. I think it's because that with a quote, you can sum up in a short time exactly what needs to be said. That's what I feel about my father's life. His time was short, but it was exactly what was needed.
My dad packed more into his 52 years than most people could do in double that time. He also did it coming from less than most.
My dad was a perfect example of God's blessings, and God's grace.
Studies have shown that the way a person views God is usually a reflection of their relationship with their father.
Most famous atheists had little or no relationship with their father.
But my view of God? God is gracious, because my dad showed me how to be. God is abundantly giving, because my dad showered us with gifts. God sacrifices, because my dad went without so that I could prosper.
My dad showed me what God's love is, because my dad loved me so much. I know better who God is because my dad showed me.
My dad never dismissed or ignored my brothers or me. Going back to when I was really young, I remember my dad having conversations with me. My father never questioned what I was capable of, only if I was living up to it.
My father pushed me to be my best, and cheered for me through all of my failures and to all of my successes.
Mark Twain once said : “Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
My father made everyone feel like they too were great.
My dad was by no means a perfect man, but if I were given an eternity to imagine a better father, he'd be no different than the man who raised me.
» Nate Cavanaugh @ 11:25 pm
Sunday, December 10th, 2006
Okay, I was wrong. I had at one time mocked jQuery as a the javascript equivalent of PaintShop Pro or Fireworks. Something light, but not something you would use for enterprise level work, and not something that would hold it's own against Prototype.
I was wrong.
For the past few months, jQuery has been knocking my socks off with it's awesomeness. Don't let it's ease of use fool you. It's got some heavy duty-ness to it that isn't fully appreciated. I am now actively pushing it in all of my projects, as well as at work in an enterprise portal/CMS.
Why? What was the deciding factor for me over Prototype?
- Developer ease of use
When you're starting out in web development, it's hard enough to get HTML and CSS down, and Javascript can seem like a real burdensome beast. By leveraging CSS knowledge, jQuery is finally bringing the power of Javascript to those folks.
- Documentation
This has long been an issue in the Prototype community. While people are making inroads, nothing can compare to jQuery's available documentation/blogs/tutorials, etc.
- Plugins
Justin seemed to poo-poo this a bit a while back, saying that Javascript is easy enough to plug into, and I think the difference is that jQuery has implemented a formalized API spec that makes it easy. Yes it's easy to do in Javascript, but that doesn't mean it's easy for everyone.
- Developer involvement
I just get the feeling that Prototype is more of a side project that Sam Stephenson deigns to be involved in when it suits him, where as I truly get the feeling that John is passionately in love with Javascript and is deeply committed to the project and treats it AND the community with a lot of respect.
- (Fairly) centralized activity
It's VERY easy to find large groups of people who are in love with jQuery and use it extensively. Prototype has a lot of use but finding large communities around it and dedicated to it is harder.
- Lots of activity
All of this centralized activity makes it MUCH easier to not only get introduced to jQuery, but to also identify and solve problems that popup. It also helps get bugs resolved very quickly.
Now, what issues do I have with jQuery? There are a few, coming from a Prototype background, and some things that don't make sense to me. Now, admittedly, I could be wrong about them, but if so, I would love to have some feedback.
- OO is non-existent (or unintelligible)
I want to write Object-Oriented Javascript and I want it to be easy. When I create an object, I want to be able to set what "this" points to. Does it point to the calling object, does it point to the clicked item, etc. Prototype handles this well by allowing you to set the object via "bind" (eg. JSObject.add('param').bind(obj) and inside of JSObject's add method, "this" points to obj rather than to the JSObject class). I would love to find a way to easily control this and know this inside of an object.
- (Re-)Setting an elements class is retarded
Almost everything else in jQuery has a very easy to remember function for setting attributes such as src() for image sources href() for link href's but why is it to set an element's class or completely reset it, I have to do this: element.removeClass('currentClass').addClass('newClass') ? Why not element.class('newClass') ?
- No forums
I have heard this is in the works, but honestly, I will buy the domain and even pay for the vBulletin license if we could get this officially out there sooner.
- Element confusion
This is something I am sure just takes some getting used to, but it would be nice for us Prototype developers to grasp if it was explained and detailed somewhere (it might already be, though). I'll give an example:
var el = $('#element_1'); // Points to element_1
var el2 = el.next(); // el now points to the it's sibling rather than returning the next object
Now, as I understand it, the way to return the sibling to el2 is to do this:
var el2 = $(el).next(); // el2 now points to the sibling and el points to the original
For me, that's hard, because everytime I use $() I feel as if there goes one more performance hit. Now, jQuery could be optimized for it, but it makes me panic something fierce, as I want to have very lean code, and having extraneous function calls hurts my delicate sensibilities.
Overall, though, jQuery is turning out to keep hitting that perfect sweet spot for me. I will also love prototypes wonderfully elegant object oriented look, but at the same time, jQuery is rocking my boxers off.
The only thing that could make me happier is if jQuery started implementing some very Prototype like functionality.
P.S. You'll notice I didn't mention anything about jQuery's XPath or CSS 3 support, but it is by far one of the coolest freakin features around. Also not mentioned, but worth mentioning here is jQuery's speed vs. Prototype's $$() function.
» Nate Cavanaugh @ 10:37 pm
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006
Well, this will probably be the design into the new year, but I am happy with it. I wanted it to have a bit of a mix of Web2.0, grunge, and Renaissance aesthetic. I think it works, but I've been known to be a moron from time to time.
Also, I have finally managed to convert the site over to using
Expanse. So what's that mean? More updates! Believe it or not, for the longest time, I was using an old crusty version of Expanse that is so far from the wonderful product I've made that I wouldn't even call it a copy of Expanse. So now, I'm not scare to update anymore :)
Okay, off to bed. Enjoi.
» Nate Cavanaugh @ 3:36 am
Thursday, May 25th, 2006
Do you have Dreamweaver 8 (might happen in MX or MX2004 as well)? Open up a CSS file (make sure all your other files are saved).
Make a few rules in the file. Now right before the closing } on one of your rules, add an apostrophe ( ' ), and hit save.
If your setup is anything like mine, you should see Dreamweaver disappear, and you cant get it open again. Nice, Macromedia. Real nice.
Anyways, to get it to where you CAN open DW again, open that CSS file and remove the offending apostrophe.
I have no idea why this happens, but it sent me for a 10 minute loop.
» Nate Cavanaugh @ 10:15 am
Thursday, April 20th, 2006
Well, not really. I was reading Life After the Oil Crash a few years ago, and even hear Matt on Coast to Coast back in September.
For those that don't know, the site is a doom and gloomer, predicting the downfall of civilization as we know it, because we're running out of oil. At first, he seemed to make a convincing argument, and mentally I was already preparing for what life would be like if technology scaled back 100-200 years.
But after some thought, I realize Matt has political motivations for saying what he says. I am sure he believes it, but I think he believes it because it
- Allows him to promote his pro-abortion stance
- Paints mankind as a vomitous wart upon the Earth
- Allows him to engage in the always entertaining fear-mongering
Matts argument flows something like this:
Society runs on oil. We eat, drink, sleep, drive, communicate, and live because of oil, and with oil. Since it is running out, society is going to collapse.
He doesnt believe that there will be a technological solution in time, and that we're pretty much screwed.
I have to disagree with Matt for quite a few reasons, and I happen to think we'll be just fine.
Here's why:
- Human knowledge is exponential. In 100 years, we've gone from first using a lightbulb, to space travel, instantaneous worldwide communication, splitting the atom, etc. When you really consider the technological breakthroughs in the past century compared to the century before that, and the century before that, you see that it is possible that we could have a solution to being dependent upon oil in the next 5-10 years. For instance, today I read about Danish college students patenting technology that allowed them to go 15 miles on 0.35 oz. of Hydrogen. That equates to 450 miles to the gallon.
- Not everyone believes that oil is running out. There are quite a few scientists, reliable ones at that, that believe oil is actually abiotic and self-replenishing.
- The oil companies would LOVE for you to believe that oil is running out. It valuates their stocks, raises profits, and allows them to give out $400million dollar retirement packages.
- We have an energy surplus. In fact, we have such an energy surplus, one of the biggest epidemics in America is obesity. We have so much energy, our bodies are swelling with it.
I did the math, and right now, the average person burns about 2,000 calories a day. Running for a mile burns 100 calories. That means to run for 40 miles, you would burn 4,000 calories. Let's say four people running for 40 miles burn about 16,000 calories.
Now, let's take one of our more efficient cars that burns at 40 miles to the gallon. A gallon of gas as 31,000,000 calories. That means a car carrying 4 people burns 31,000,000 calories after 40 miles.
Why the difference? Because cars are terribly inefficient. Technology can and will improve that efficiency. Heck, we already have the technology. We are that technology. All we have to do is find a way to mimic it. (BTW, pardon the incredibly unscientific illustration, but it's just to make a point). The point is, one atom contains enough energy to keep us going for a while, and we have plenty of atoms.
I will leave with this quote from the man who was the oil minister of Saudi Arabia for 30 years, Sheikh Zaki Yamani: "THE Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil."
» Nate Cavanaugh @ 3:45 pm
Tuesday, July 19th, 2005
I've been building my own computers for the last 5 years, and in that time, I've gone through about 4 computers.
And although I am A+ Certified, and I can assemble the hardware okay, it's a rather frustrating process, and eventually, I end up messing SOMETHING up, which requires either a fresh install, fresh hardware, or something else.
As of today, I am done with all of that. Thanks to a VERY awesome friend who is too good to me, I have a new computer on the way.
This is my new machine-y.
Why Dell? A couple of reasons, actually.
- Price.
Im not rolling cash, and while a Mac would be fun to play with, Dell's are affordable - Reliability.
Jessica's has had her computer for 3 years now, and while I've gone through three computer's in that time, she's kept the same one. The only changes she's made is a new hard drive, and some extra RAM. She's kept her machine up for 28 days once.
So, until I get it sometime next week, I will be without a computer at home. Ug... oh well, more reading time, I guess :D
» Nate Cavanaugh @ 3:01 pm
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