Under The Sun

5 Steps to Keep Your Kids Safe on the Web

#1: don’t put the PC in the kid’s room…

One thing that makes Firefox a viable alternative to Internet Explorer is, ironically, the “IE View” plug-in which lets you quickly switch to Internet Explorer for those sites that require it. This includes parts of the Microsoft site such as the MSDN Library and Windows Update, as well as sites that are just written by clueless programmers (getting fewer, thankfully).

The Firefox ietab plug-in goes one better by using IE to render web pages in tabs inside Firefox, which is really cool! As with IE View, you can specify sites that are always rendered using IE tabs. Now there’s no need to fire up Internet Explorer ever again!

Jakob Nielsen ses: Avoid Within-Page Links to avoid confusing your users.

I’ve started to find this myself, now that I use Firefox’s tabbed browsing. If I’m following a link and know that I’m going to return to the originating page, I open the link in a new tab — which is annoying when it unexpectedly loads another copy of the same page (especially if the page loads at a glacial pace). Perhaps we need a way of indicating links that are internal to a page.

What led US neoconservatism into its catastrophic adventure in Iraq, when this was arguably an exercise in the use of Government power to effect social engineering that contradicted the very core of neocon doctrine? Writing in the NY Times, Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History, looks for an explanation in the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War:

This overoptimism about postwar transitions to democracy helps explain the Bush administration’s incomprehensible failure to plan adequately for the insurgency that subsequently emerged in Iraq. The war’s supporters seemed to think that democracy was a kind of default condition to which societies reverted once the heavy lifting of coercive regime change occurred, rather than a long-term process of institution-building and reform.

Academics fight rise of creationism at British universities

Most of the next generation of medical and science students could well be creationists, according to a biology teacher at a leading London sixth-form college. “The vast majority of my students now believe in creationism,” she said, “and these are thinking young people who are able and articulate and not at the dim end at all. They have extensive booklets on creationism which they put in my pigeon-hole … it’s a bit like the southern states of America.” Many of them came from Muslim, Pentecostal or Baptist family backgrounds, she said, and were intending to become pharmacists, doctors, geneticists and neuro-scientists.

The trend has prompted the Royal Society to confront the issue with a forthcomimg talk entitled Why Creationism is Wrong, to counter what it sees as a growing tendency to irrationality.

Or as The Register spins the story: Creationists want your children.

Among climate change skeptics, this article by Steve Camp is possibly the most willfully ignorant, scientifically illiterate and uncharitable piece by a respected Evangelical writer I have been embarassed to read.

Update: Steve has revised his article, as he explains:

I like using humor and sarcasm in driving home a point–it is an effective tool in communication especially when dealing with issues like this. BUT, after receiving some off-forum (and a few on forum) comments from those whose opinions I do value, I have decided to update this article calming down the sarcasm significantly, but still dealing with the heart of this important issue. Please forgive me for the needless offense my original entry caused any of you. 2 Cor. 6:3-10

I still think he’s wrong on the science, but I respect his application of Christian principles to the argument.

Incidentally, an unofficial “Steve Camp Page” demonstrates the potential for embarassment when using hosting services with context-based advertising. I doubt that either the website owner or the eponymous subject would approve of the advertisment that the Yahoo software decided was a good match for “Christian” and “Camp”!

I think sea-level rise is going to be the big issue soon, more even than warming itself.

A satellite study of the Greenland ice cap shows that twice as much ice is going into the sea as was previously thought, with serious implications for rising sea levels.

The BBC is organising the “world’s largest ever climate experiment” using distributed computing to harness idle time on thousands of PCs around the world. Anyone can join in by downloading an application which can double as a screensaver.

After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”

“Yes, he does,” he replied.

When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own sons or from others?”

“From others,” Peter answered.

“Then the sons are exempt,” Jesus said to him. “But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.” Matthew 17 verses 24-27

This little episode contains rather more than at first appears. It doesn’t have anything to say about the rights or wrongs of paying taxes to the civil authorities (Jesus adresses that question elsewhere). Jesus has a much more important lesson for Peter, and hence for us.

The two-drachma (half shekel) tax was a voluntary contribution that every pious adult male was expected to pay, for the general upkeep of the temple. Jesus and the disciples had just returned to Galilee from Jerusalem, and their payment was 6 months overdue. The tax collectors question may have been a leading one, questioning Jesus’ commitment to the temple worship, but as rabbis and teachers were exempt from the tax they may just have been unsure of Jesus’ standing at the temple.

Peter is quick to answer on his master’s behalf, but Jesus has something unexpected to say to Peter in private.

Leona Helmsley famously claimed that “only little people pay taxes”, and in the case of Kings and their families this is true. Jesus explains to Peter that he is exempt from the tax, not as a rabbi or a priest, but as the Son of God, the King of the temple. However, Jesus was not going to assert his rights when this would be misunderstood by others. Payment would be provided.

Finding a coin in a fishes mouth is actually not as bizarre as it sounds. In the Sea of Galilee there is a species of fish, Sarotherodon galilaeus galilaeus, which hatches its eggs in its mouth. When the fry have grown and left the parent, it will often instinctively take any shiny object it finds — such as a coin — into its mouth in their place. Old Jewish tales suggest that someone catching such a fish would consider the find to be a gift from God.

The catch may have been natural, but its finding was a miracle. Peter needed faith to carry out Jesus’ remarkable instruction. The outcome is unrecorded but can be taken as read.

The origin of the half-shekel tax can be found in Exodus 30:11-16. It was applied in the context of taking a census of the people of Israel, and is described as a “ransom for the soul” and a “memorial for the Israelites before the LORD, making atonement for their lives”.

So this is the lesson that Jesus had for Peter: God has come into the world in the person of Jesus, the Son. Through him, the servant king, the ransom-payment for his people would be paid, a miraculous gift from God received through faith.

That’s quite a message in a small, fishy tale.