Technorati Tags: Inspiration

It's pretty clear: Cycling is doing the right thing, and other sports should be embarrassed about how comparatively weak their efforts are to rid their sports of doping. Instead of being ashamed of the doping reports coming out of the sport, I'm proud to be a pro cycling sport fan. This letter to the editor (of Velonews) from Les Hugie, of Santa Maria, CA I couldn't have said it better. So I hope he doesn't mind me adding this here (without permission.))

“I applaud cycling and the efforts it is making to rid the sport I so love of dopers and cheaters. People who thought this would be easy need to open their eyes and minds to the level of corruption that is in all aports. Imagine what would happen if the NFL chose to follow cycling's lead. Never fear, we won't see the giants of the gridiron forced to take drug tests anytime soon. It would cost the teams and the networks millions in lost revenue. Baseball has recently chosen to allow an admitted steroid user to go unpunished because of his charity work. How charitable on its part. Doping is a cancer, but a curable cancer. Like any cancer it does not go away with the wave of a wand. There will be continued attacks by those who have not come clean, and there will be continued attacks by the media and misguided fans. But I envision cycling to be the only ”pure“ sport within two years.”

I was raised in Denver, in a pentecostal christian home. Christianity has been my root faith for my entire life.

As a person who loves science (I like the popular everyman's books on physics, etc.), and a technology-type guy, I must admit I had times when I wanted to reconcile in my mind what I know and believe about science and my faith. Far, far, far too many Christians accept of their faith without question, and turn a blind eye to the findings of scientists.

I question everything I do in my work life - to challenge existing thinking to make it better. Why, then, should I not challenge my faith to see what holds up, and what doesn't? Doesn't this lack of willingness of Christians to examine ourselves reduce our credibility? Hasn't this reluctance by american Christians come to be viewed by the intellectual elite as non-thinking masses blindly taking their opiate?

I decided that intellectual honesty compels me to do a deep examination of my long-held beliefs to see what stands up under the scrutiny of the modern era of cosmology, evolutionary bilogy, etc., and be ready to accept where this led. A bold thing in my world.

If you're either a Christian who has deeply-repressed worries about the same thing, or are an agnostic who endures (but looks slightly down on) Christians, or a full-out atheist wondering how a rational thinker could believe in God, give me the next 2 minutes of your time. I request no change in your belief; just willingness to listen, as I've chosen to do.

Technorati Tags: Inspiration

My appetite was quenched by the book The Language of God, by Francis S. Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project. Clearly he's a credible scientist with a strong belief in scientific theory. A guy worth hearing out, IMHO.

I devoured the book voraciously. He writes articulately, with the intellectual rigor and honesty I sought about how to examine faith in God without checking my brain at the door. He has heard every argument against faith from scientists, and rationally breaks them down into component points, and addresses the arguments for/against each. He uses current science, his own journey from atheism to faith, provides quotes from (relatively) recent contemporaries like C.S. Lewis, and shows how these deep questions about creation & faith have been examined with rigor as far back as a thousand years ago by St. Augustine - well before the current Christian animosity towards evolutionary biology. He also provides quality scientific descriptions of modern science to show how physics, chemistry, and bilogy can fit together with a belief in God.

He not only does his own investigation into the big questions of life -- Why are we here, how did we get here, and what does life mean -- he encourages people (like me) to put their faith to a disciplined examination, and find their own path. He doesn't preach, he doesn't claim to be the final answer, but does provide both scientific, theological, and process resources to allow thinking people to find their own path.

I'm not going to actually present a case here for/against faith. He does it so much better. So I highly recommend this book for everybody - Christian, agnostic, and atheist. (Oh, and by the way, he fully characterizes and examines each position in the book. Interesting reading even if you disagree.

Thank you, Dr. Collins, for both helping me now see the beauty of God in science, how I can rejoice in the new discoveries of science and how they help me see the words God is using to commune with us, and for giving me a path to continue my journey.

Technorati Tags: Inspiration

But I think there's another, subconscious reason: I have an inflated sense of the effort required to write something, and because of the perceived effort, I don't instinctively lean towards making the investment of time required to write a blog entry.

For several years I was an analyst at Forrester Research. While there, I learned that writing is a hard job, and good writing is rare. We strived to write well, with tight, efficient communications that had a consistent voice. Having a good editor — and being a good editor — was a key element of the process.

Blog writers, myself included, don't normally have an editor or editing step. So I have this natural internal feeling that whatever I write in a blog entry won't be “up to snuff.&rdquo. The Salon article above doesn't do anything to make me feel any more inclined to blog more often, but it does help lots of people understand that good writing is hard, that good editing makes things better, and that the blogosphere doesn't have the benefit of editors. I wish I the benefit of one. I'd feel happier about what I write here.

Technorati Tags: Inspiration, Internet

However, I am a serious fan of professional bicycle racing, particularly the pro tour in Europe. While it's a popular spectator sport in Europe, with big purses and large fan attendance, it's (sadly) hardly on the radar screen here in the U.S.

Besides being a spectacularly difficult sport of human strength and endurance, it's also fraught with huge danger. Crashes are not uncommon, and having been in a couple of cycling crashes myself, I can tell you that:

• It hurts a lot to go down;
• These guys more often than not get up and finish a race after a crash -- a decidedly superhuman effort in my opinion;
• Anybody that doesn't cringe when they watch a crash, and who doesn't have huge respect for these athletes who put themselves on the line with nothing except some nylon and a helmet on their bodies, is way too closed-minded to be a friend of mine.

The folks who organize the Tour de France have put together a video of the notable crashes in the 2007 tour. While the Tour is the race everybody in the U.S. knows about, the summer cycle racing season is full of amazing races, with spectacular athletic efforts, exciting finishes, and too many crashes.

Technorati Tags: Inspiration

When I look at applications themselves (distinct from frameworks), I see three basic types:

• Content management systems
• Wikis
• Blogging systems

And these are all (of course) built these days on some kind of framework, like Spring, Ruby on Rails, or Grails.

The question that occurs to me? Why have these three types of applications emerged as separate application types? Aren't they all just variations on content presented through web servers? I look at each and see:

• Content types, e.g. body content, sidebar content, etc.
• Layout controls, indicating where each content type will appear, along with how it appears (e.g. all of the content, vs. blog-style “intro” and “read more”)
• User access controls
• etc.

Seems to me that as each of these three types of web applications mature, they're looking more and more alike. Maybe somebody should really abstract these properly, and create one system that is adaptable as needed.

Of course, then again, maybe “applications optimized for a purpose” make them more friendly for users. I guess I have more to learn here.

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So with that said, it makes me feel happy that I scored high on this. :-)

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