Barefoot in the wilderness
in search of understanding

Firefox 1.5 is out!

The new version of the Firefox web browser is out – version 1.5 is available from the Mozilla site. If you’re using Firefox, now’s the time to upgrade. If not, now’s really the time to try it

Back after a hiatus

Apologies to anyone who cares that I’ve not updated this blog in a while. I’ve been rather busy, what with work and getting the second version of my course for the SfEP sorted out. On top of which, of course, what little truly free time I’ve had has been spent either writing for NaNoWriMo or feeling guilty for not writing! Still, the end of November’s nearly here so posts should be a bit more frequent again.

pax et bonum

ShakespeaRetold

The BBC has been doing an excellent series of Shakespeare – ShakespeaRetold. They’ve done three already (_Much Ado About Nothing_, Macbeth and The Taming of the Shrew) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream is tonight (8:30pm, BBC1). If you’ve not been watching, I’d encourage you to do so. I’m not really a Shakespeare sort of bloke, but they’re excellent.

The gimmick is that they’re not using any of Shakespeare’s actual words. Instead, the shows are modern tales, but using exactly the same plot as in the original. This makes for surprisingly compelling viewing. Macbeth, for example, was transplanted to a successful restaurant, with Macbeth competing to inherit the business. And it worked wonderfully – harrowing viewing, as we watched his descent into madness, driven by guilt for what he had done. (And casting binmen as the witches was genius .) The Taming of the Shrew, by contrast, was full of life, fast-moving and fun, as a Tory MP and contender for the party leadership is “tamed” by her new lover.

Good stuff – go, watch, enjoy!

pax et bonum

More on the Sony DRM fiasco

So, Sony have seen the light and pulled their nasty malware-ridden CDs and replaced them with real CDs that don’t mess up your PC. Apparently, there are at least half a million servers out there reporting that they’ve got Sony’s malware installed – which means a lot more PCs than that, because AOL (for example) would only register a single server for all its users.

Only, it’s not as simple (hah!) as it appeared. Even Sony’s uninstaller program, which is supposed to rid your Windows PC of their nasty software, has a hideous security hole in it, which is being exploited by certain nefarious websites.

The message seems to be that, for an ordinary human being who’s bought a Sony CD with this software on, the best thing to do is use Sony’s website to get a replacement CD without this software and then to reinstall Windows to get rid of it. No, seriously – that’s the only way to get rid of the software properly. Even an expert would be hard pressed to return an infected system to its proper condition.

Something has gone wrong with the balance of power and rights between producers and listeners, when a major music label can cause such havoc for innocent people whose only crime was to buy Sony’s music!

Update
If we thought things couldn’t get more stupid with this story, it now turns out that Sony’s DRM software “apparently contains pirated code” – that is, the company who wrote it allegedly ripped off someone else’s code. And, in a bizarre twist, the person whose code seems to have been stolen is “DVD Jon”, the media industry’s villain of the decade, who also wrote the code that lets people who don’t use Windows watch their DVDs!

pax et bonum

Another quiz

Warning – this one’s very silly

(click for more)

Sony helps virus writers

Sony, the electronics and media giant, has taken to putting software on the music CDs it releases that controls how you can play and copy the CD. Sounds reasonable? Well, perhaps it is, in principle – musicians have a right to earn a living from their art (although the pittance they receive begs the question of who truly benefits). However, in practice, this Digital Rights Management (DRM as it is called) has taken a sinister turn. Sony’s version, called XCP, installs itself onto your Windows PC, then subverts the system in two crucial ways. First, it diverts all attempts to read the CD through itself. Second, it cloaks itself (borrowing the techniques of writers of viruses and other malware) so that the user cannot see the files or running processes.

The combination of these two things means that the software appears to be malware itself. It can be used to cloak other malware (the first example of a trojan in the wild was recently reported – which means it could be on your PC now) so that they can hide from the user. And trying to uninstall Sony’s DRM is very likely to leave you with a PC that cannot use its CD drive at all! Leaving you having to spend a day or two reinstalling your operating system and all your software, merely because you tried to remove something that you never asked to be installed in the first place. (Sony’s DRM installs itself without asking you or telling you what’s really happening.) And, what’s worse, what happens when another company uses software that tries something similar? Two programs trying to grab control of reading your CD drive almost guarantees that your PC will be trashed and unable to boot – merely because you tried to listen to a CD that you bought legitimately in a shop.

Not good.

And, in case you think you don’t listen to that sort of music (whatever “that sort” is), there’s a list of the titles known to carry this insidious threat here.

pax et bonum

10 000 words!

I’m a happy bunny today – I’ve passed the 10 000 word marker in NaNoWriMo That’s 10 000 words written in 10 days. I’m well on target for my personal goal, but some way off the pace if I was aiming for the official 50 000 word target…

The astute among you have probably realised that this is part of the reason for sparse blogging at the moment. Apologies – normal service will resume at the end of November!

pax et bonum

Flash security warning

The Register is reporting a new security flaw in Flash (used for web animations). Everyone is advised to upgrade.

NaNoWriMo update 1

Nearly a week into NaNoWriMo, so I thought I’d bring anyone interested up to date. I’ve not really had a whole lot of time to write (as expected) but I’ve managed to get 5208 words written since Tuesday, so I’m well on my way to beating my personal target of 15 000-20 000 words, if nowhere near where I need to be to make 50 000 words!

Anyhow, here’s an excerpt from my progress spreadsheet (a bit sad, I know, but it was there on the Internet, begging to be used ):

pax et bonum

Bizarre and insane

Groklaw is reporting that the US Patent and Trademark Office has published a patent covering a storyline. Yes, the US apparently now holds that patents no longer apply only to machines and inventions but also to concepts as nebulous and divorced from the material world as plotlines. Existing law has, for centuries, recognised an author’s rights as enshrined in the idea of copyright – that someone who creates a novel (or play, or opera, or symphony) has the right to decide whether and how that creation is reproduced. Crucially, though, copyright applies only to the actual expression of the work. So, although it is illegal simply to copy someone else’s novel, it’s quite alright to write your own novel based on the same ideas (preferably with a few of your own added!). This is how art works – writers, artists and composers are inspired by one another to create works incorporating new ideas and the ideas of others in new and exciting ways.

But if the USA starts to grant patents on stories, this will end. Patents differ from copyright in that they control not the expression of ideas but the ideas themselves. The holder of a patent on a machine that makes boxes controls whether anyone else can make her machine – but can’t stop someone building a different machine to make boxes provided that it works in a different way. By contrast, the holder of a patent on a story can prevent anyone telling that story in any medium. We will find that the large Hollywood studios (as the ones with the money to buy such patents) will control all stories. Which means that writers will only be able to write under contract to the studios. Which means that the amount of writing will go down hugely in the USA, which means that the amount of publishing will go down hugely, which means that there will be far fewer new writers, which can only impoverish us all. Do we really want to go down this road?

pax et bonum

Christus Victor

Sven, at his Theology and Biblical Studies blog is starting what looks like being an excellent series on the history of atonement theory. He starts by showing that the early church, for the first thousand years of its existence, didn’t follow either of the current methods of understanding it – as either objective (changing God, as in penal substitution) or subjective (changing people). Rather, it used a ‘dramatic’ model that looked on Christ as winning a victory over the evil powers of the world.

pax et bonum

Showing love

Graham of Leaving Münster quotes something that Tony Campolo said. Now, Campolo’s someone I’ve never really got into but one plus point (in my book) is that he and his wife are open about their disagreements. One such is over homosexuality – she believes that gay people can be in relationships and be Christian, he believes that the Bible forbids it. And they speak about this issue together. Good for them!

In one such talk, Tony said this, about the attitude of many Christians to gay people:

I want to tell you something. After you say you can’t live in my community, after you’ve said you can’t teach in my school, after you’ve said you can’t go to my church and after you’ve said you can’t come to my college, after you’ve said all of this stuff – don’t think for one moment it’s going to wash when you smile that plastic smile that I see in the Christian community and say, “But we love you in the name of Jesus.”

And that’s the rub. We must say the same thing with our actions as with our words. If we claim to love gay people in Jesus’ name, we must act like it. We must either include people or admit that we treat them as inferior. Saying one thing while doing another is pure hypocrisy.

pax et bonum

Buy Nothing Day

November 26th is International Buy Nothing Day – just one day one which we can try to spend no money. If it sounds impossible, why is that?
(_Thanks to Maggi for the tip._)

Both faith and secularism increasing

A new BBC poll (reported by Ekklesia) shows that ignorance of other people’s beliefs is worryingly high.

Why Intelligent Design might not be all that intelligent

Sven has a good article about Intelligent Design. Unusually, he takes a look at one of the commonest reasons people support ID – the idea that it allows space for a Christian idea of God. Sven points out that this is wrong. What ID does is bring back the old Enlightenment Deism, in which a “God” started the universe off and then left us alone to get on with it. ID offers no hints that the triune Christian Creator God is involved. Indeed, the actions attributed to the “Designer” by ID advocates are actually at odds with the God revealed in Christ.

Advocates of ID…stake the entire validity of Christianity and the Bible on a positivist reading reading of Genesis 1-3 that seeks to turn the text into a literal scientific and historical account of how the world began. “If ID falls, then so does Christianity” they say, and indeed it does – and the only thing rising from its ashes is Atheism. ID tries to punch above its weight in the realm of science, and its rebuttal leads to wholesale and outright rejection of Christianity altogether.
Yet all of this is so needless. Christianity is not a theory about how biological life began. God did not give us Genesis with the sole purpose of using it as a polemic to refute worldviews that would arise 3,500 years after the text was written, and those who make Genesis – or rather, their particular theological slant on Genesis – the foundation of Christian faith are undermining Christianity, not strengthening it. The foundation of Christianity is not ID, creationism or even (yes) the Bible – Jesus is the foundation and needs to be the point from which all our critique of science and our doctrine of creation proceeds.

pax et bonum

Betraying Jesus

Mike at WorD shares some thoughts about true Christian living.

Using the Bible

Sven has some good things to say about how we should use the Bible when discussing with one another.

God or Not 2

The second God or Not Carnival is up at Eternal Revolution. This time, the topic is ‘proof’‘.

Conservatives in illegal ordination shocker

Ekklesia is reporting that conservative-evangelical anglicans in London have organised a service to ordain three men as deacons, outside the CofE’s structure. Because they object to many bishops’ positions on the question of homosexuality, they arranged for a bishop in the ‘Church of England in South Africa’, which is not part of the Anglican Church, to come and preside at the service. And this was despite the fact that the Bishop of Southwark, who has responsibility for this area, had expressly opposed the ordination.

This has two bizarre aspects, it seems to me. First, it is obvious that this is less about getting these three men ordained deacons than it is about making political points. And using solemn, sacred services like this as political ammunition is not appropriate. Second, and more important, is the question of what on Earth they think they’re doing. If they are members of the Church of England, they choose (by virtue of that membership) to obey certain structures and doctrines. One of those structures is the primacy of the bishop within his diocese. In other words, for a member of the Church of England, there can be no valid service in a diocese if the bishop opposes it. Similarly, there can be no valid ordination without the bishop’s agreement – not in his own power but by virtue of the fact that, in the CofE, the bishop represents the Church. If they put their ideological positions above the position of the Church (which their actions clearly show that they do) then they are declaring very loudly and clearly that they do not share the Anglican understanding of the church. They are declaring that they do not recognise the authority of the bishop.

Now, whether or not we agree with their position on homosexuality, and whether or not we believe that the church should have a heirarchy like the CofE’s, it is surely clear that these men simply do not belong in the CofE. They are declaring that they disregard the authorities that they claim to hold, and that they disregard the agreed positions of the church they claim to be members of. How can someone stay within the CofE when they are so clear that they don’t belong there?

pax et bonum

Memorial service for July bombing victims

There have been objections from various sources about the memorial service being held today at St Paul’s Cathedral for victims of the London bombings in July this year. The main objections seem to be from the British Humanist Association, who aren’t happy that the service was predominantly Christian – although they concede that there was significant involvement by people of other faiths and none (including an official BHA representative).

What seems particularly perverse about this is that they are complaining that a Christian service, held in a Christian place of worship, organised by a Christian bishop, is predominantly Christian. Well, surprise! If they want a predominantly secular memorial, they ought to be organising one themselves. If they leave these things to the Church of England, they shouldn’t be surprised that the service won’t be to their liking. You can’t have it both ways.

pax et bonum