Wittenberg, Part 2
Continuing from Part I.
It was so quiet that even the proverbial church mouse was not stirring around St. Francis of Assisi Chapel. Father Thomas, who had just plodded through the passageway that connected the church with the parsonage mused about the simple blessing of a warm passageway between his office and home. Though he had initially resented when the bishop had placed him in the little country parish, it did have its perks.
He gazed out the window of his home and looked down the hill where the moonlight danced on the water of small pond that the church owned. A smile crossed his face — it would only be a few months before parish children were once again playing in the pond, seeking a short respite from the heat. Life was good here.
His reflection caught his attention in the windowpane. His hair was almost entirely gray now, and the light silver rims of his glasses twinkled back at him. He sighed. He was growing old; he had originally intended much more exciting adventures for his life, but now he was known as the kindly, quiet cleric whose big secret was that he would sometimes sneak down to the pond to fish for a little while when he needed a break from the problems of the parish.
He shuffled over to his small kitchen and pulled an old coffee filter out of his Mr. Coffee. He opened open a small box that held filters and put a new one in, then took a few tablespoons of decaf coffee and placed it in the filter. A little coffee would be nice before heading to bed. Thomas then filled the coffee pot with water and started pouring it into the coffee maker. It was only then that he heard the peculiar sound coming from the chapel. It sounded like a chain saw.
Not usually a particularly brave man, the recollection of the simple enjoyment he received from the parish apparently had instilled a momentary protectiveness of his parish and he dashed over to the door that led to the passageway he had just passed through and unbolted the lock. The sound seemed to be coming from the front of the nave. He passed quickly from the apse and glanced down the aisles of pews. No, the sound was coming from the narthex. He rushed down the center aisle and pushed hard against the old, wooden doors that led to the entryway. The sound had ceased, and that's when he realized what it had been. As he stood in a stupor of a particularly confused form of shock, he heard the squeal of a car not far off. A cold breeze caused him to shiver. By the time he came back to his senses, the vehicle was long gone.
His hands trembled as he turned around and retraced his steps, trying to figure out precisely how he'd explain the situation to the police.
Don't feel bad...
…if my last post made you think “huh!?!?” That's precisely what it was suppose to do. More coming soon.
Wittenberg, Part I
The Rev. Doug Matthews sat in his office chair intently studying the computer screen that glowed in front of him. Rose leaned in the door way and sighed. “You're not working on that again, are you, Pastor Doug?”
He nodded slowly and turned in his chair, which produced an uncomfortable squeak. “I'm only going to be here for a few more minutes. Go home — it's past five as it is.”
Rose studied him uncomfortably. “It's just, I don't like you staying here all hours of the night. If I leave before you finish, your liable to stay here late into the night. Come on, Doug,” she said, a little firmer than she had intended.
Doug smiled. “Just a few more minutes, really. You can go, I won't stay past 6:00. I promise.” Rose waved a hand at him and walked off to get her coat. She was a dedicated secretary, perhaps a bit overzealous about his bad habit of staying in the office late, but that was for his own good, he knew. He heard the main office door open and then shut. Good, now he could finish.
He turned back to the text he had brought up onto his screen. Something seemed different about this passage. He leaned closer, taking his glasses off to get a better view. His mind went blank for a moment, and then the realization struck him. This was it. There it was, right in front of him. He spun around in his chair so hard it nearly sent him onto the floor; he dashed up and grabbed his coat in one fluid motion. If he was right, this was it — after nearly fifteen years, he had found it. And not a moment too soon. He had to move quickly.
He raced out of his office into the reception area but stopped when he heard an odd sound. It sounded like someone was sawing something. The power went out, turning the room an eerie amberish color as the emergency lighting sprang into action. Doug's mind whirled as he realized what was going on. It all makes sense — I have to get out of here. Someone else was in the building — that much he was certain of — probably down by the main circuit breaker box in the basement, if the sawing noises had given any indication.
He raced for the door and ran out into the cold, rainy mid-winter night. As he ran to his car, he flipped open his cell phone and called the police. He had no time to waste, but leaving the church to the devices of whoever it was that had broken in was not prudent. He hastily reported the information on the intruder and slammed the phone shut to the protestations that he shouldn't leave. Time was short, and much as he might like to stay, it simply was not an option.
Doug Matthews sped off into the dark wet night with a sinking feeling. He just hoped he'd still be capable of having a sinking feeling in a few hours.
Comparing Apples to Apples
I've been trying to help a fellow who bought an Apple Mac mini Core Solo and finds it slow, particularly with Camino and Audacity. The Core Solo variant never should have been offered, and no longer is, but he got one, so I wanted to figure out if it was actually slower than its predecessor G4 system and how it stacked up to other systems. Here's what I wrote, for those who enjoy benchmarks.
OK, so here's the full comparison, including my PowerMac G5 Dual Processor @ 2.7 GHz, my Dell Intel Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz (Windows XP SP 2), my Mac mini PowerPC G4 @ 1.44 GHz and the previous results. The PowerMac has a ATI Radeon X850 XT with 256 megs of ram; the Dell has an ATI Radeon 9700 with 128 megs of ram.Rendering Single CPU My Mac mini (PowerPC G4): 138 Nathan's Mac mini (Core Solo): 206 My Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz: 259 MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz: 303 My PowerMac G5 @ 2.7 GHz: 410 Rendering Two CPUs/Cores My Mac mini (PowerPC G4): -- Nathan's Mac mini (Core Solo): -- My Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz: -- MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz: 564 My PowerMac G5 @ 2.7 GHz: 744 Shading (CINEMA 4D) My Mac mini (PowerPC G4): 152 Nathan's Mac mini (Core Solo): 206 My Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz: 267 MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz: 348 My PowerMac G5 @ 2.7 GHz: 405 Shading (OpenGL S/W) My Mac mini (PowerPC G4): 463 Nathan's Mac mini (Core Solo): 888 My Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz: 1097 MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz: 1141 My PowerMac G5 @ 2.7 GHz: 1279 Shading (OpenGL H/W) My Mac mini (PowerPC G4): 475 Nathan's Mac mini (Core Solo): 940 MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz: 1031 My Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz: 2336 My PowerMac G5 @ 2.7 GHz: 2902First note: this isn't terribly scientific. Not all the systems are configured as closely as possible, but it'll provide an idea. My Mac mini has 256 megs of ram; my PowerMac has 1.5 GB; my Dell has 768. My mini is running Mac OS X 10.4.8 Server. The Mini and the Windows system are on a KVM switch hooked to an LCD panel doing 1280×1024, as is the MacBook (well, it is wide screen, so the resolution is a bit different), I believe, whereas your system was driving a higher resolution 1440×900, which ought to slow it down a bit, and my PowerMac is driving a 1920×1200 screen, which should slow it down even farther.
Big point: the Core Solo performs substantially better in every test over the PowerPC G4 Mac mini — even in the hardware OpenGL test — despite the PowerPC Mac mini's discrete video card with 32 megs of video ram.
There's a number of things that could be going on: first, not all apps are optimized for Intel yet. Your best bet is still to use the apps optimized for the job. Safari should best Camino, GarageBand should do better than Audacity (Audacity isn't even a native Aqua app, and as I've said, I'm not sure how well Apple's X11 is optimized — it is OK, but still…).
But, given that the Core Solo outperforms my Mac mini, I'm scratching my head a bit. I'm not sure why yours isn't performing acceptably, because mine is quite usable even though it is quite a bit slower.
The other thing I can offer from this is that at least in terms of rendering power, you can see that the PowerMac is still a monster compared to the other systems. This might indicate that you should consider buying one. They are getting cheaper on eBay and it still has some good life in it. Or, given that the Mac Pros are showing up as even faster, if you spring for the extra expensive system, it should give you a LOT more performance.
Nevertheless, I think the Core architecture really shines here, once you go to a multi-core system. If you look at the MacBook, it performs significantly better than the Mini, especially when you have two cores going. Part of that is purely a clock difference, but the second core helps a lot. The MacBook @ 2.0 GHz bests the faster clock speed Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz on every test, even when using just one core, save for when the test is primarily based on video card performance (the last test), where the Radeon 9700 with 128 MB of ram still shines fairly well.
I think that means that you would see a substantial performance increase with a Core Duo Mac mini, but whether it would be enough for you is hard to say. Waiting for a Core 2 Duo Mac mini might be the best thing. It will give an additional speed boost, but still would be cheaper than a used G5 or a Mac Pro.
So there you have it. If you had a sleepless night last night wondering if a Pentium 4 could beat a MacBook, or whether a Mac mini Core Solo would trounce a PowerMac G5, now you know.
I'm behind
…on everything other than school (good thing, since I've only been at CTS for a day, eh?). I have articles to write, church stuff to do, e-mails to reply to, pictures to download to my computer, some programming work… And, I need to get back to some of my writing projects too.
But, what would I do if I ever got it all done?
Off to a Great Start
Well, how much can one tell of classes on the first day? Usually, I can tell pretty much, but certainly not everything. But, going by the first day, this is going to be a really great semester. Between the first three classes and an amazing chapel service, I left campus today after my first class day at Covenant Seminary feeling really excited and uplifted. How wonderful! Is it the common sense of mission? The exciting topics? God's working in the campus and students? All of the above?
It was just great.
I'll say more later, but for now I just had to share the excitement. Admittedly, the first day is easy, and it is something new and exciting. But, I didn't really feel that excited yesterday or the day before. I didn't even feel that excited — just, perhaps, a bit apprehensive — this morning before class. But, afterwards, I just felt like I was exactly where I was suppose to be.
Hopefully it will stay that way!
Times of Crisis
The following thought amused me the other day.
About seven or eight hundred years ago, something happened that disrupted theology as it formerly was: the Greek classics, and, particularly, Aristotle, took the universities by storm and suddenly there was a growing rift between the arts and theological faculties. Suddenly, theology lost its grip on explaining things as people trusted in human understanding over God's understanding. To heal the rift, someone needed to show that it was possible to bridge the worlds of reason and faith — to show, in fact, that they were not two separate worlds at all. Someone stepped up to the plate and did just that.
About a century ago, a similar problem occurred again. New and improved techniques of scholarship had lead people to further separate authority from theology, and particularly from Scripture. The Church had become a weak shadow of itself, wallowing in shaping God in man's image. More than just giving up its authority to explain the world, theology had conceded explaining itself entirely to human devices. To heal the rift, someone needed show that it was possible to bridge the worlds of reason and faith — to show, in fact, that they were not two separate worlds at all. Someone stepped up to the plate and did just that.
Of course, regular readers of asisaid will know I am talking about none other than the Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas, and Karl Barth. Aquinas synthesized Aristotle to show that his highly rational, realistic framework for just about everything worked well with the teachings of the Church. Likewise, Barth showed that one could accept higher criticism and other tools that came out of nineteenth century theological liberalism and still accept the essential doctrines of the Church. In both cases, the effect was to show reason and faith are not disjuncts.
Aquinas's synthesis suffered its share of critics in the time immediately after its genesis, and I'd suggest we are currently seeing something very similar falling out with Barth. Some reject Barth's willingness to accept scholarly techniques, such as higher criticism, and others reject Barth's adherence to orthodoxy. Whatever the particular tiff, Neo-Orthodoxy, at least in the U.S., is relatively a weak force compared to its neighboring systems on either side of the theological spectrum.
The question for us in this twenty first century is what will become of theology? If Barth continues to follow the example of Aquinas, then this is the century that Neo-Orthodoxy will revitalize theology. Ed probably wouldn't pick the world “revitalize” for such an occurrence, but in the great theological revival of the twenty first century, he'll see the light. Perhaps soon we will be able to refer to the Swiss theologian by a nice, honorary title too (if only Protestants used such titles).
Harvard's Curriculum and the Study of Religion
An interesting piece from Newsweek.
Enough people agreed with him. In December the task force withdrew its “Reason & Faith” recommendation, substituting instead a category called “What It Means to Be a Human Being.” On the phone, Louis Menand, the English professor who cochaired the task force, sounds exhausted. “It's noncontroversial that there is this thing called religion out there and that it has an enormous impact on the world we live in. Scholars should be able to study and teach it without getting cooties”—a term of art, not science.
It's rather interesting — and disturbing — that scientists have become so anti-religious that they do not understand the academic reasonability of studying religion. Studying religion does not mean forced conversion of students. What are they scared of? Maybe they are afraid that the truth will set students free.
The problem with studying religion, if one is anti-religious, is that it shows that faith is not set against reason. It may be beyond reason (the crisis point of faith), but the system ultimately is reasonable. If students see that theology is “faith seeking understanding” (Fides Quaerens Intellectum), as Anselm so appropriately put it, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps students would — gasp! — decide that a thinking person could believe in God!
(Found via Dr. Sean Michael Lucas's blog; I have not yet met Dr. Lucas but will be taking a course from him this semester.)
Scheduling Things
Well, I'll write more about the exact details soon, but it ended up not being until today that I got my schedule finalized at Covenant. I am now set to start my first class at 8:00 a.m. on Friday morning. I'll have Tuesdays and Thursdays off to do work and studying, with the other three days fairly full.
It is not an ideal schedule, but the every-other-day arrangement saves some commute time, and I think will be a good thing by and large.
Five Things
Cranium Leakage's resident teacher and all around great guy Christopher tagged me about a week ago to do a meme where I list five things that are little known about myself. Let's have at it.
- I don't like mint. This isn't something that people discuss much, because mint seems to be an almost “neutral” flavor — like vanilla — for many people. Not me. I don't like it. I don't mind the chocolate mint cookies from the Girl Scouts, but other than that…
- I collect snowmen. I have a little wooden snowman who appears to be dancing and a small snowman candle sitting on my desk, for example.
- I do not like to fly. Planes make me somewhat apprehensive and my ears do not get along very well with them.
- I can do rhymes and meters without too much effort, but for some reason my mind has trouble working with limericks. I usually end up adding too many syllables or something like that.
- My favorite book growing up was Everybody's Business, a book of profiles on the top 500 companies.
Incidentally, ahem, it seems that some certain teacher did not do his homework that I assigned him. But, I've done mine. So there.
