Hither and Thither 9/28/2012

Well friends, let's launch. This one particularly will probably grow until the usual noon Texas-time cutoff.

So we'll get right down to... hey, WAKE UP!

• First, to get it out of the way: I think everyone in Christendom sent me an alert about the coming global bacon shortage. I just don't believe it.
• But anyway, to me the big news was that the Brits have a National Pig Association. Yikes.
• More to the point, one of the dear ones at CBC (Phyllis D.) pointed me to 25 things that helped create the world's bacon shortage. That's probably it.
• Here's a later report saying the earlier report is bologna. Now, true, it's an MSM report, so... who knows?
• Magnificent Lego Obsession Update. I'll save the snark and just say, "Dude." (Frank Turk)
• John feels everyone ought to just man up, step away from the Legos, and do model trains and airplanes... like this!
• Seriously, (1) it's quite brilliant, and (2) I hope the guy does something commensurately constructive with that kind of mind.
• Heh.

• Lacking the word-spreading support system that other authors enjoy, I gratefully share with you two new five-star reviews, one of The World-Tilting Gospel, and the other of God's Wisdom in Proverbs.
• Are you, like me, baffled that in a purportedly rational universe, Obama's support can even still be in single digits? Here's your explanation. And here (a classic).
• What's offensive, BTW, isn't Romney mentioning the 47%. What's offensive is the 47%.
• Just whoa. Darth Vader as you've never heard him, but could have heard him, and will never want to hear him again.
• To get that out of your mind, have a look at Vader in love. (Turk)
• Oh, what the heck.
• Part of the path to totalitarianism is for the state to make it harder and harder for the church to do what the church does. (thx Robert Sakovich)
• Speaking of totalitarianism, gloomy gus Denny Burk is saying that the voters of America are hopeless, clueless, national-death-wish-ridden idiots. Well, those aren't his exact words.
• Meanwhile, Doug Wilson says Romney wins. But he's a postmill, so you can't take anything he says too seriously.
• It is comforting to see Romney reaching out to younger voters. (thx Jill Miller)
• Very inside joke for IT geeks, courtesy of Randy Talley:

• Woof. Julie Garrett found a very cool (from this distance) video of a car being hit by lightning.
• From my dear wife: what is the secret of well-behaved Latino children? It is a mystery no longer: it is... la chancla!
• ...then, from Jay Budzilowski, something sure to delight DAOD: Henri 2, Paw de Deux. Yep, an existentialist cat.
• Well, they've just made it against the law to be a practicing Christian parent in Delaware.
• Oh, yeah:

• As if it weren't bad enough that our coming robot overlords are learning to fly, walk and run — Jim Foster found out that they're even learning to swagger!
• Not only that, but they're learning how to lull unwary humans into inattention.

• All I can say about this vid is... squirrel!
• Do note the universal word.
• Well, Isn't That Nice? alert: at least someone is willing to talk with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
• Tangentially: coolest "bad link" page I've seen in awhile.
• Here's a fun montage of TV show theme songs. (h-t Denny Burk)
• There's something I was going to explain in detail for you, but I just...

• And of course the Roman Catholic Church has totally changed since Luther's day. You got the memo, right? Totally. Changed. Er...sorta. (Randy Talley)
• Of course, there are two kinds of people in the world: people who have not seen/do not love The Princess Bride, and decent people. Assuming you're the latter (you read this blog, after all), you'll be able to add to these eleven reasons we still love The Princess Bride 25 years later.
• Okay okay, it's a sensationalistic title and not strictly true... but still, this is a cool picture, and some of the comments (I didn't read them all) are pretty funny.
• Wow, over already? That was like... like... how to describe it? Like this!

• And then:

THE USUALS WILL BE OBSERVED

Review of NICOT/NICNT on Olive Tree software

Obviously I have not read every page of the NIC series, but I have used it extensively. Like all multi-author series, it is uneven in quality, but the whole is worth having, and I do recommend it. The NICOT/NICNT series is one of the best series, and it features many must-have volumes: Hamilton on Genesis, Waltke on Proverbs, Moo on Romans, Towner on the Pastoral Epistles (though he decries that name) in the newer volumes, Morris on John and Murray on Romans in the older — these are indispensable books.

This review focuses on those books in the Olive Tree software for PCs: the NICNT and the NICOT. Olive Tree supplied me with the books for review.

Regular readers know that I've loved Olive Tree software on my iPhone. I've often alerted you to Olive Tree sales and news. We've all appreciated that Olive Tree seems to do its best to price its products as reasonably as possible, and often has significant sales.

So what's the word on Olive Tree (henceforth OTree) as a PC application?

I owe God, you and Olive Tree the truth. Thus, I have to say regretfully that, for my purposes, OTree books on the PC right now is at best a work-in-progress. I'll be specific.

On the plus: all the books' text is there, along with all the font-effects and (as far as I can tell) the Hebrew and Greek fonts. If all you want to do is read the books, well, there they are, just fine, and at decent prices.

However, I'm afraid that left with quite a few gripes at this point, in varying degrees. Unfortunately, Logos has not yet supplied me with NIC volumes for a detailed review, but I will make a few comparisons with Logos as an application.

1. Copy text from a book to a word processor and you lose a great deal. You lose all footnotes, all font effects (i.e. italics), and you even quotation-marks and apostrophes. If you copy text with (say) the phrase "Yahweh's image as go`el," what you get is "Yahwehs image as goel." So you have to go back and forth and repair each copied selection.
2. Copy text from a book to a word processor and zero bibliographical info is supplied. That is, it does not create a footnote with source citation. (Contrast Logos, which creates a fully-documented footnote.) Absent that, there is no way to locate the text — page number, hyperlink, nothing. That's a bad flaw. It renders OTree well-nigh worthless for authors or students.
3. There is no marginal table of contents. If you want to find something quickly... well, good luck.
4. Notes that you create on the text in OTree do not hyperlink back to the text. That is, you can see a mess of your notes, but they don't take you back to the location in which you inserted them. They are present in the text, but you just have to find them. So if you see, "This is the clearest explanation I've ever read" among your notes, nothing in that note takes you back to the location, and the text doesn't have page numbers.
5. Nor do notes within Olive Tree link within texts. For instance, in Towner's work on the Pastorals, a footnote reads, "See above on Christology, C. 3. c. (2)." Whereas (say) Logos would likely link straight to that text, in Olive Tree you're on your own, with no marginal table of contents or any other help. And as you search, you lose your place.
6. The Find function is moody. I had it simply refuse to work for me at times. That is, I enter a word that absolutely is in the text, but Find won't find. I have had searches fail; then I close and reopen the application, and the identical searches work.
7. The layout is very clumsy. For instance, the NICOT/NT are supplied as two massive collections, including all the books in the set. That is, NICNT Romans (for instance)_ is not a separate volume. To find it, you must click on NICNT, then Go to Romans, then drill down any number of levels to find the text you want. (See illustration below.)
8. There is no way to hyperlink back to text in these books or even cite a page number. This contrasts with the easy way Logos supplies for creating hyperlinks.
9. The hyperlinks within the books (e.g. Bible verses, footnotes) do not display on mouse-over (as they do in Logos), but must be clicked, whereupon eventually a window pops up. Clumsy.
10. Highlighting is very clumsy. In Logos, you can select text and hit a single key. In OTree, select the text, right-click, select highlighting, select color. Or select text, click on plus icon in margin, select highlighting, click on color.
11. The application itself is sometimes balky. More than once, the display goes out of kilter, with the font displaying oddly, or the margins rearranging. Close, reopen, all is well. I had to do this several times with one resource the other day.

To show you what I'm talking about in terms of getting to a book (#7 above): here's what it takes to get to a comment on part of Titus in the NICNT. It takes something like seven different moves.

If all you want is to be able to read something, Olive Tree delivers. I mean — the text is there. For a smart phone, that would be enough. But for PC use by pastors, students, writers, academics, the app of choice for reading books still going to be Logos.

Yet in terms of price, Olive Tree regularly is far the better choice. For instance:

• NICNT: Olive Tree is selling the set for $499.99, whereas Logos is $879.95 (note, however, that the Logos bundles four more volumes than OTree)
• NICOT: Olive Tree is selling the set for $699.95, and will supply future volumes as free upgrades; Logos is asking $899.95, and charges for additional volumes.

When the new OTree software version comes out, I plan to do an updated review, and see where it leaves us, whether it OTree gives competition to Logos yet other than in price.

Monday music: Misirlou / Miserlou (classic re-post)

This comes from May of 2009, and is among my favorite MM posts, evar.

I know. Strangest Title Ever. But I like to start the week with something light and fun if possible, and This is That.

Strange title, yes. But you know it, probably by the spelling "Miserlou."

"I don't know it at all," you say? Give THIS a listen. It's a recording titled "Mousourlou," by Greek bandleader Michaelis Patrinos, from around 1930.

Didn't do it for you? How about this sultry version from around 1947, sung in Greek by a crooner named Danai? Here are the lyrics, according to Wikipedia

Greek
Μισιρλού μου, η γλυκιά σου η ματιά
Φλόγα μου 'χει ανάψει μες στην καρδιά.
Αχ, για χαμπίμπι, αχ, για λε-λέλι, αχ,
Τα δυο σου χείλη στάζουνε μέλι, αχ.

Αχ, Μισιρλού, μαγική, ξωτική ομορφιά.
Τρέλα θα μου 'ρθει, δεν υποφέρω πια.
Αχ, θα σε κλέψω μέσα από την Αραπιά.

Μαυρομάτα Μισιρλού μου τρελή,
Η ζωή μου αλλάζει μ' ένα φιλί.
Αχ, για χαμπίμπι ενα φιλάκι,άχ
Απ' το γλυκό σου το στοματάκι, αχ.

Translation
My Misirlou (Egyptian girl), your sweet glance
Has lit a flame in my heart.
Ah, ya habibi, Ah, ya leh-leli, ah (Arabic: Oh, my love, Oh, my night‎)
Your two lips are dripping honey, ah.

Ah, Misirlou, magical, exotic beauty.
Madness will overcome me, I can't endure [this] any more.
Ah, I'll steal you away from the Arab land.

My black-eyed, my wild Misirlou,
My life changes with one kiss
Ah, ya habibi, one little kiss, ah
From your sweet little mouth, ah.

I bet you're getting it now.

Here's the version you're likelier to know.

Pretty funny, in some ways. My, rock videos have changed. Dale himself looks like he's having fun, but the band... yikes. Double-yikes on the drummer. He seems troubled. I thought drumming was fun. And - no idea what the saxophonist is doing.

Back to the song. What you may not have known — as I did not know — is that the song is very old, not American  and probably was written in the 1800s. It is (as you see) about an enchanting little Egyptian girl.

But then in the 1960s, a ten-year-old kid challenged Dick Dale (King of the Surf Guitar) to play a song on just one string. Dale told him to come back the next day. Dale was actually Lebanese-American, born Richard Mansour; he thought of music he'd heard at weddings, picked Misirlou/Miserlou, and decided to ramp up the speed. Hence, Miserlou.

Here's a more recent version, by Dale. Music begins at 1:25.

Sources:

Wikipedia
Dinosaur Gardens (which says the Wikipedia article contains many errors)

Vanity of Vanities: Twitter displaying badly in Google Chrome

I love Google Chrome and use it exclusively. Almost exclusively. Sometimes, it doesn't display a page right; but that's rare.

Right now, it's displaying Twitter stupidly. Like this:

When it opens, the B portion starts to be in A, where it should be... but then it bounces down to where you see it in the screen shot. For some reason, this seems to create blank space C, which obviously should not be there.

I have no widgets. A number of apps have access to Twitter. It doesn't make sense that they would have this effect, and because of past nightmares in the Twitter/Facebook link, I'm reluctant to mess with it.

What have I done for troubleshooting?

1. Uninstalled and reinstalled Chrome.
2. Rebooted several times.
3. Cleared cache and cookies several times.
4. Confirmed that it does display properly in IE.
5. Searched Google fruitlessly for any articles or posts on this issue

There y'go.

UPDATE: Mike Vickers suggested I try an incognito tab (Ctrl+Shift+N), disabling extensions. I did that. It displayed fine. So... great.

UPDATE 2: Okay, Mike Vickers is a genius. I tried disabling extensions one by one. When I disabled the last (SelectionLinks 1.0), Twitter displayed properly.

Well, that was fast. I'll leave this up in case some other poor schmuck is having the same issue, so (s)he will find a post about it.

Thanks, Mike!

Monday Music - Sons of the Pioneers

A day-late birthday present to my dear wife Valerie. As a young'un, she liked doing homework to the sounds of the Sons of the Pioneers. She made a fan of me as well; particularly their early work, with that jazzy guitar and the terrific harmonies.

Here's a favorite of ours, and one of the very few live performances I could find. A bit cut; sorry, honey! From 1937.

Hither and Thither 9/14/2012

Two weeks already? Whee!

First, and seriously: I saw something like this as I headed to work early Thursday. Houston is so cool.

• Remember the gent who did the Jonny Quest opening sequence in stop-motion? He's raising funds to attempt an entire episode in the same medium.
• Romney on Second Amendment rights: this interview is a good and encouraging read. More reasons to vote for Romney rather than supporting Obama by failing to do so.
• Courtesy of Kerry Allen, this Star Wars tea infuser is very, very cool. For, you know, tea-drinkers.
• Coming Robot Overlord Update: the critical question at the moment is — can you run faster than 28 MPH? (Blaine Moore)
• And before you say, "Pah, that thing had to be hooked up! They'll never get speed and stabilty!" — Kerry Allen has evidence to the contrary.
• Oh well, Julie Garrett thinks this is funny, so some of you will too.

• She also found Three Little Pigs like you've never heard them.
• Know all those crazy conspiracy nuts who say the MSM are in the tank for Obama, and coordinated in their efforts to defuse the only credible challenger? Turns out — not so crazy.
• Obamacare summed up in one sentence.
• Wow. What does it say when I look at this, and my first thought is about moderating some metas at Pyro (and even Facebook!)?

• Jeri Tanner has a happy thought: Turbaconducken.
• I don't think I'd ever heard of Hobby Lobby before moving to Texas; but now I've got a reason to like them.
• And now if you still, in spite of everything, think God calls His people "sheep" because they're so fluffy and cuddly and adorable...

• Staying with animals, Mizz Harpy, PhD that she is, found us reams of scientificity about purring.
• Plus she treats us to some ice fishing like a boss.  Yow!
• Only Mostly Dead alert: and just in time for sermon illustrations across the land. (h-t Trevin Wax)
• BTW Trevin is a daily stop for me, and will always have a special place in my heart. A year after publication, Trevin remains the only Gospel Coalition blogger publicly to review and recommend The World-Tilting Gospel.
• Finally someone in the GOP (who else?) says it is time to reform the TSA. At least!
• This is really quite interesting. My dear wife is one of many who lament, "Why can't coffee taste as good as it smells?" Challies actually located a scientific answer to that question. It relates to two different ways in which our sense of smell works. That, plus "the fact that 300 of the 631 chemicals that combine to form [coffee's] complex aroma are wiped out by saliva." Any chance that this discovery might lead coffee makers to counter that effect? Wouldn't that be something?
• I'd make some crack about this pic from Randy Talley showing Obama during the appalling events in Libya... except we know he was actually campaigning in Vegas.

• ...which, like everything else, is OK when you're a Democrat.
• And Randy sent me a pretty good Perfect Food candidate:

• To which one can only respond...

• And, from the other side of the equation, the view from the pulpit:

• Back to politics.
• Kimberley A. Strassel has a worrisome piece about Romney campaigning too tepidly and too cautiously. Gotta love "Crouching Romney, Hidden Mitt" (though I might've said "Hidden Ryan"). Mona Charen agrees.
• This is pretty terrific: photography by seagull.
• Readers Valerie (not my dear wife) and Daniel (not me) have found yet another way to cook bacon!
• Ahh, the French. Always drinking wine, sneerily snarking... well, and hunting werewolves.
• BTW, be sure not to hurry on before savoring the words, "a team of werewolf experts from Paris." They're like a cornucopia of wonderfulness.
• Love bacon, yes. But dude, seriously, don't be insane about it.
• Pop that pimple? Doc says don't, and here's why.
• Wasn't that fun? Yep, I said it would be. I see you smiling.

• Now this.

THE USUALS WILL BE OBSERVED

Fun: Doodling in Math — Spirals, Fibonacci, and Being a Plant

Do you have to enjoy math or understand Fibonaccis to enjoy this pleasantly motormouth girl's graphic musings?

Evidently not!

(thx Kerry Allen)

Monday music - "That Lonesome Road," verrry lowww, Tim Storms

The man with the deepest voice in the world sings:

Oh! OK, then, turns out Twilight makes 'way more sense than I thought!

Modern "continuationism" in 34 words

Modern "continuationists" are exactly like someone desperately seeking a can of olives in a cupboard. Finding nary a single can of olives, he grabs a jar of mayonnaise and cries, "Eureka! You see? Olives!"

Calvinist hermeneutics

Gotcha.

Monday music - "Puttin' on the Ritz" flash-mob

If you can watch this without smiling, seek help.

What baffles me is the 3300 dislikes. Amazing. Folks must be a lot of fun at parties.

Previous BibChr takes on this song:
Here; and
Here