Getting to Know Your Environment: The Best US Map Ever
Published on January 12th, 2012.
My wife likes maps. Our honeymoon involved a lot of driving, including a few days with about 10 hours of driving each. For many of those hours my lovely new wife sat with her hand on a point on an Atlas map, watching the road signs. When we passed a significant marker, she would look down at the map, move her finger, and then continue watching the road.
This was another confirmation that I had married someone different from me.
The world is a colorful, textured, diverse, cultured, and populated place. We could all appreciate maps a bit more for their help in acquainting us with our shared home. This is, after all, our environment.
Thanks to a mapmaker named David Imus, we now have what has been called “The Greatest Paper Map of The United States You’ll Ever See.” His map, a product of some 6,000 hours of work, recently won the most prestigious honor in the mapmaking field.
Here’s Slate’s description of what his map special:
…the big mapmaking corporations of the world employ type-positioning software, placing their map labels (names of cities, rivers, etc.) according to an algorithm. For example, preferred placement for city labels is generally to the upper right of the dot that indicates location. But if this spot is already occupied—by the label for a river, say, or by a state boundary line—the city label might be shifted over a few millimeters. Sometimes a town might get deleted entirely in favor of a highway shield or a time zone marker. The result is a rough draft of label placement, still in need of human refinement. Post-computer editing decisions are frequently outsourced—sometimes to India, where teams of cheap workers will hunt for obvious errors and messy label overlaps. The overall goal is often a quick and dirty turnaround, with cost and speed trumping excellence and elegance.
By contrast, David Imus worked alone on his map seven days a week for two full years. Nearly 6,000 hours in total. It would be prohibitively expensive just to outsource that much work. But Imus—a 35-year veteran of cartography who’s designed every kind of map for every kind of client—did it all by himself. He used a computer (not a pencil and paper), but absolutely nothing was left to computer-assisted happenstance. Imus spent eons tweaking label positions. Slaving over font types, kerning, letter thicknesses. Scrutinizing levels of blackness. It’s the kind of personal cartographic touch you might only find these days on the hand-illustrated ski-trail maps available at posh mountain resorts.
Learn more about Imus’ map or to purchase, go here.
Filled under Uncategorized. 1 Comment.
A Circular Beacon of Happiness
Published on January 6th, 2012.
It’s time to gift my drum pad from high school to my children, so I am looking for a new one. In my search for a new drum pad, I was delighted to stumble upon what appears to be a fine replacement by OffWorld Percussion. I was even more delighted to stumble upon this accidentally deep customer review by an enthusiast on Amazon.
This drumpad – I can’t even call it a drumpad.
This circular device for bringing joy into lives of sadness will change all that you know about the world, all of your negative views about international issues will be washed away, all of your pain will be washed away when you touch this circular beacon of happiness with a pair of wooden transmitters to your soul. This beautiful flat surface will make all the starving children be fed, all the hurting families restored, and all the sadness gone.
If you purchase this wonderful magnet of joy you will become part of something bigger, you will become part of the minority of people that have played on a v3. If you, and you will buy this magical circular surface, you will be enlightened with the peace of mind and hands.
Sincerely,
BFawng
The heavens declare the glory of God, and so does music and so does rhythm. Whether he knows it or not, this guy was made for everything he (in fun) is saying this drum pad is good for.
Filled under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Bible Eater: A Plan for Feeding on Christ in 2012
Published on December 26th, 2011.
After forty days without food, Jesus still could still say, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Jesus also said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger.” (John 6:35).
I take it that Christ would have us to think about the Bible as food, and to think about exposure to the Bible as eating. We cannot truly live without the Bible because true life comes to us through the Christ revealed across its pages.
A Plan for Reading the Bible
God has not told us when or how often we should read the Scriptures. He just told us we need them in order to live. Since we plan for pretty much everything necessary to life, it makes sense that we would plan to be in the Scriptures.
So, in view of the new year, I put some time into refreshing a tool I designed for reading the Bible through in one year. It’s called, Bible Eater: A Plan for Feeding on Christ in The Whole Bible in One Year.
Here’s a quick overview followed by an explanation of its features:
- Read 2-3 Old Testament chapters per day and take 4 days off per month, or use those days to catch up.
- Read 1-2 one-sitting designated Old Testament books in each 3-month period, indicated in blue.
- Read 1 New Testament chapter per day, 5 days per week.
Features:
- Flexible Format: This plan has a balance of daily reading at a pace of about 2-3 and sometimes 4 chapters a day, and 4 days off per month. In addition, 1-2 Old Testament books are designated for a one-sitting read during each 3-month period, including Deuteronomy, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Isaiah. These books were chosen because they are the right length to keep the reading plan simple, but also because these books can be helpfully read in a single sitting for the big picture.
- Reading Both Testaments Together: Some annual reading plans assign the first ten months to the Old Testament and the last two to the New Testament. Others get you in both testaments but have you in four different places every day. Since we read the Old Testament from the perspective of our New Testament position, it is good to read both together, but this plan keeps it simple with one track in each testament at a time. While the Old Testament is designed to be read in three-month blocks, the New Testament books can be read in any order.
- Redemptive Historical Highlights: Every chapter in the Bible is important since every word in the book is from God. But some chapters are more crucial for helping us understand the overall narrative of the Bible’s salvation story. Red highlights indicate these kinds of chapters. Some contain promises of a prophet, a priest, a king, a new exodus, a new creation, etc. to come. Others show the need for this One in the unfolding drama of God’s grace to a rebellion-wrecked, suicidal humanity. New Testament highlights show the fulfillment of these great expectations in Jesus Christ.
Why Plan to Read the Bible?
The eating imagery certainly helps us understand the nature of the Bible’s importance to our lives. But that picture also helps us think through how we might act on the Bible’s importance.
Like eating, it makes sense to plan for when and how often we will read the Bible. In my own experience, both of these can suffer without a plan, and more so for the Bible because of the artificial filling effect of sin. And like eating, it makes sense to plan for what and how much we will read. We can survive on an unplanned nibble of food here and there, but that wouldn’t be good for us and it wouldn’t make sense if we had a magical grill with an eternal supply of steak.
Plenty of people stay alive without a plan for eating, but they aren’t usually healthier for it.
If you haven’t decided yet on a plan for reading the Bible because you’ve decided that having a plan isn’t important, I’d encourage you to read John Piper’s excellent and persuasive article, “A New Year’s Plea: Plan!” And if you aren’t hip on this specific plan but would like to consider others, read Justin Taylor’s excellent overview of various Bible reading plans.
God is a God who plans and He always plans for things that are good. For that reason, we can reflect the glory of God by exercising dominion over our time with a plan to enjoy the greatest privilege we have as humans: eating the bread of life and living.
Filled under Uncategorized. 2 Comments.
Jesus, Joy of the Highest Heaven
Published on December 16th, 2011.
A beautiful new song by Keith and Krystn Getty:
Here’s an explanation of how it was written.
Filled under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Get One While They Last! Thoughts about Jets, Power, and the Gospel.
Published on December 14th, 2011.
Today, the last F-22 Raptor rolled off the production line at the Lockheed Martin production facility near Atlanta. Funding is being shifted to the less expensive F-35 program, a similar fifth generation fighter jet.
Until several years ago my only exposure to a fighter jet was the movie, Top Gun. An F-16 showed up an an air show I attended and when it flew over my head, two thoughts went through my head: 1) I’m glad I’m on the right side of that machine, and 2) I want to fly that machine.
It was graceful and powerful, wonderful and fearsome.
Then it occurred to me that the only reason we need jets like this is because of the trouble that sin causes. We may have invented them had sin not entered the picture, but not for the purpose of defense. This machine was designed to save lives. But while a fighter jet can both take our life and save our life, it cannot keep us alive forever. It can keep us from dying now, but we will die nonetheless. It’s just not that powerful.
Thankfully, in Christ we have something more powerful at work in us. That’s why in Ephesians 1:19-20, Paul prays that we would know “the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead.”
If I could buy an F-22 Raptor, I would do it. If I could fly one, I would fly it.
But, thankfully, I don’t need a raptor to know the kind of power I ultimately need, for I know the power that defeated death in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
HT: Drew Hodge
Filled under Uncategorized. No Comments.
The Surprise of Our Lives
Published on December 8th, 2011.
“Alexander Tsiaras, Chief of Scientific Visualization in the department of Medicine at Yale University, employs new kinds of visualization technologies to view the human body. . .Using micro-magnetic resonance imaging, Tsiaras tracked the development of the baby from conception to birth.”
If it is true that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” as Psalm 139 tells us, then, in one sense, what we see in this video should be no surprise. At the same time, if this is true, then we should be very much surprised, and plan to be surprised for all eternity.
HT: JT
Filled under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Sydney’s Song
Published on December 3rd, 2011.
I’m listening to a song about the worst thing and the best thing in the world.
When Kristi and I arrived in Albuquerque a little over a year ago we were welcomed by the Byrd family. Ian and Alyssa’s community group gifted us with some transition money as a welcome to the city and the church.
In time, we’ve come to learn about some of the tragedies that have shaped the lives of our new friends. Most good people have known very dark days. Some have lost spouses. Others have lost children. Some have lost children very young. That’s the case for Ian and Alyssa, whose daughter, Sydney, was stillborn at 31 weeks. This family has grieved seriously, they have looked to God longingly, and they have shared something of their story through their blog. Thinking on the death and loss of a little one, I’m reminded of Paul’s words in Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
Ian and Alyssa wrote a song for their girl. It’s titled, simply, Sydney’s Song. Sydney’s Song was released just a few days ago on November 30, her fourth birthday. The lyrics movingly mingle heartache and grief with the hope and glory that we know in Christ – a savior who suffered with us, and who died for us, and who rose from death in order that he might, as the song says, “make the sad untrue.”
The song is $2 and can be purchased here.
Sydney’s Song
He gives and takes away
You were never meant to stay…
in our armsGoodbyes they come too soon
Our dreams, they died with you…
that dayAnd while we trust, our hearts ache for you
And while we live, we live still without youHallelujah, this broken heart is His to mend
Hallelujah, He breathes new life in me again
Hallelujah, He is Peace, the Risen Lamb
Hallelujah, the sting of death is in His handsHe gives and takes away
He was never meant to stay…
in this worldGoodbyes they came too soon
Our hope, it died with You..
And Rose Again!Her empty arms
His father’s heart is torn in two
Jesus you came, to make the sad untrue
Filled under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Mark Steyn on Multiculturalism
Published on November 29th, 2011.
Filled under Uncategorized. No Comments.
“Folly is bound up in the heart of a child”
Published on November 16th, 2011.
A summary of an arrest reported first by ABC News:
There’s a ruffian in Florida who faces felony charges after she allegedly spit at a bus driver and threw a chair at the cops after she threatened to kill them. She supposedly became very upset when she was told she wasn’t allowed to eat candy on the bus and then could not be calmed down. After she got off the bus, the police showed up and things went from bad to worse. The rowdy troublemaker started throwing asphalt at everyone, and when the cops asked her to calm down, she said, “Shut the f**k up! I will f**king kill you!” and threw an aluminum patio chair at them.
By the way, the culprit is 9 years old.
Filled under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Marriage as a Video of Christ and the Church
Published on November 6th, 2011.
During a recent visit to my parents home in St. Louis I decided to dig up the old three peat video from the mid-nineties. If you’re wondering what that means, it’s probably because you are wondering whether I’m referring to the Chicago Bulls’ first or the second three championship run. The first.
I found the VHS tape, stuck it in the “deck” and expected to be transported back to at least a flicker of the emotions that came with watching the team seal their third championship. . . .Nothing. And this was one of those hour loung narrated videos with triumphant music in the background and all.
The reason I wasn’t moved by this tape was because of the devastating quality of the picture, the cinematography, and the storytelling. Since the mid-nineties a lot has changed, and I was distracted because of a drastic change in standards.
And this brings me to the subject of the day I married Kristi. Everything was perfect. Kristi certainly was. But the photos were lacking. I care about photos and the wonderful improvements in digital photograph in recent years have only dampened my feelings toward our wedding photos.
Oh, but I have a video. I set up three still cameras, filmed the wedding, and seamed the shots together. Who has one of those?!?
Recently I shared a conversation with a good friend and wedding photographer, Jeff Marshman. In this conversation he introduced me to what must be one of the next big things in big-life-moment documentation. I’m not even sure what to call it, so I’ll call it by name of the little wedding video business that produced the following video: Mawwage Films.
Randy & Megan from Mawwiage Films on Vimeo.
Three reflections:
First, it sure would be special to have our wedding captured with this kind of care, realism, and artistry. But there’s no substitute for the daily companionship that I have with my wife.
Second, at least this technology will be there and better when I marry my girls off. I will start talking to them tomorrow morning about the importance of a videographer in their wedding budget.
Third, in the same way that even the best photo or video cannot accurately capture the drama, significance, or weight of a wedding, none of our marriages will perfectly reflect the drama, significance, or weight of Christ’s love for His bride, the church. At the same time, in the same way that even the worst photo or video can say something true about the event it captured, so too our marriages, even with their failures, are a picture of Christ’s love for the church – or, shall we say, a video of Christ’s love for the church.
Filled under Uncategorized. No Comments.
