On Friday, I completed the unabridged audio edition of The Absence of Nectar by Kathy Hepinstall. I found it to be both poetic and deeply disturbing. I highly recommend it.

I’ve fallen off the face of cyberspace the last two days. I was in San Antonio because my mother had surgery to implant a device that will hopefully reduce her Parkinson’s disease symptoms. The surgery went very well, but they won’t turn the device on for six weeks, so we have to wait until then to know how much it helps with her symptoms.

In honor of U.S. Independence Day, Matt Haughey posted the entire Declaration of Independence to his blog. I hadn’t read it in years, and when I did so this morning, I was struck by two points: first, what a prime example of Enlightenment thinking the document is, and second, in a related matter, how it refers directly to “Nature’s God”–the god of the Enlightenment–not the Judeo-Christian god.
Re-reading the document makes me proud to live in a country that was founded on such high ideals, even if we so frequently don’t live up to them.

This blogger has created his own religion.

A friend from church forwarded to me this recent New York Times op-ed piece by former Senator, and now ordained Episcopal priest, John Danforth. He characterizes my view of religion and politics very well. One good snippet:

To assert that I am on God’s side and you are not, that only I know God’s will, and that I will use the power of government to advance my understanding of God’s kingdom is certain to produce hostility. By contrast, moderate Christians see ourselves, literally, as moderators. Far from claiming to possess God’s truth, we claim only to be imperfect seekers of the truth.

The National Council of Churches issues a call to pursue peace and justice in Iraq. Well put–both the political and social justice parts.

I just completed the abridged audio edition of Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The protagonist Xeo recounts his life story among the Spartans in order to give the Presian King Xerxes an insight into the Spartans’ unique character and bravery. The novel uses the stilted language of ancient epic, which made the audio edition particularly enjoyable.

This Business Week article attempts to answer a question that I’ve wondered about:

One of the more puzzling aspects of the current housing boom is that mortgage lenders have been offering ever-sweeter deals on loans. These days it’s increasingly easy to qualify for a loan with little or no money down. . . Why have lenders been so liberal when they run the risk that many of their marginal customers will go into default?

The answer, according to the article, is just shortsighted greed:

Many lenders are just plain desperate for business, according to some experts. In a bid for market share, mortgage lenders are offering highly favorable terms to borrowers. That’s forcing the rest of the industry to match their terms or lose customers.

I find this answer believable, but incomplete. Still searching…

This has been making the blog rounds the last few days. Joe Kraus has three interview questions can be used to tell whether an engineer might be a good fit for a start-up software company:

1. Do you have a blog?
2. What’s your home page?
3. Do you contribute to an open source project?

When I read his post, I immediately thought of a coworker with whom I’ve worked at two start-up software companies. This guy is brilliant, articulate, hard-working and one of the most productive programmers I’ve ever seen. He’s been a huge asset to both start-up companies. But when this guy leaves the office, that’s the end of his technical life for the day. As far as I know, he doesn’t look at a computer outside of work.
So, this co-worker passes the spirit of Joe’s questions with flying colors, but would fail the actual questions miserably. I see what Joe is getting at with these questions, but the questions themselves are an absurd reduction.