The ramblings of an addled mind.
We all know how memories are stored in the human brain, right? Well … no, actually we don’t, but we DO know how information is stored in machine or computer memory … right?
Well if RAM, DRAM, SRAM, SSD, and HDD (the language of computer memory) are just so many meaningless acronyms, here is a quick, low-tech lesson on how computer memory works. But first, lets look at some really old computer memory tech. Continue reading “Machine Memory”
It’s raining.
Not hard, just a gentle rain.
Before it started raining I was mowing the front yard.
I was using our self-propelled walk-behind mower: that area is way too steep for the riding mower.
Riding mowers tend to roll over out there.
Rolling a mower is not fun.
I hit a stump. Continue reading “Sisyphus and Blondie Bear”
Marie and I were sitting on the front steps this afternoon watching the birds at the bird feeder. Marie commented that she put some gourmet bird food (includes nuts) in the feeder, she was surprised a squirrel hadn’t camped out on the thing.
No sooner were those words out of her mouth than a squirrel came hopping along the ground through the trees. He hopped up and climbed the metal pole the bird feeder hangs from and began to chow down. I went out and chased him off.
Marie said, “I should put some cooking oil on the pole.” Continue reading “Squirrel Revenge”
If you follow the publishing industry at all you will have noticed a number of trends. Everybody and their dog are talking about the trends in self-publishing via eBooks. I’m not going to talk about these: they are well covered.
What has motivated me this morning is a discussion I’ve been having with a managing editor at one of the magazines I write for. A couple of days ago she opened a discussion with me about a special project article. Special projects are stand-alone publications. They often bear the name of the parent magazine, but are published as a magazine sized book. We have been discussing this proposal via e-mail since. One of the questions I asked was the expected word count. Continue reading “Trends in Publishing”
Early this spring my friend and mentor, Benny LaFleur, gave me a load of berry starts. These are roots and shoots that creep out from around his established rows. To clean up the rows he digs out these ambitious upstarts. Some of these ended up in my garden. In fact all of my berry plants have come from Benny over the past couple of years. Benny’s berry patch is much (much) larger than mine: almost a farm. And he has a ton of experience to share. Here is what he’s taught me. (Continue Reading …)
In Romans chapters 6 ,7, and 8 Paul is teaching about the relationships between our flesh, our spiritual self, and our bondage to three laws. The first law is the law of the flesh. Our fleshly bodies are ingrained with a tendency for sin by following our base natures. The law of the spirit comes upon us when we accept Jesus and the Holy Spirit indwells us. This helps us fight against the law of the flesh. The law of God is made up of the rules God has set out to His people, beginning with the Ten Commandments.
Our physical bodies can be alive in the flesh, but dead to the Spirit because we are following the law of the flesh. Even gracious, loving, people are the walking dead if they have rejected Jesus. Their bodies have mortal life but because their spirits are dormant the law of the flesh reigns in their life, leading them toward sinful behaviors which results, eventually, in spiritual death (which does not refer to a cessation of awareness, but the eternal separation from God. All spirits are immortal: where they spend eternity is determined on the day of judgment). Continue reading “Spiritual Zombies”
In Romans 5 Paul talks about how sin came into the world through the disobedience of one man: Adam. God gave him one rule; do not eat the fruit of this tree, and Adam broke that one rule. Sin has been with us ever since: we are born into a sin-filled world.
Sin is dealt with through one man: Jesus. “8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.“
Since the time of Moses, God has dealt with sinfulness through sacrifice. The Israelites atoned for their sin by sacrificing unblemished animals. But this did not eliminate sin, only paid for sins committed. Continue reading “A Friend In Jesus”
With the possible exception of a multi-best-seller author, all writers should seek constructive criticism of their work. The bigger the work, the more important this is. This may be proofreading for typos, or it may be seeking help with plotting and character development; that depends on your experience and skill. Here are some pointers for finding and dealing with constructive criticism. Continue reading “Constructive Criticism: What it is and how to use it”
Some churches have several dominant personalities in leadership positions – even if they are not officially leaders. Sometimes diversity causes frictions between these people and others that erupts into sparks of distention. I’ve seen it happen many times in the various churches I’ve been a part of. Sometimes these frictions are over what is most important in a church or how it is to operate. In most cases those butting heads are following their own hearts and truly believe in what they propose as being most important and what everyone should focus on.
What is often overlooked is that our diversity is often our greatest strength. 1 Corinthians 12 puts it this way: Continue reading “Unity in Diversity”
Bricklayers lay brick. Nurses nurse. Accountants do acco
unting. Actors act. Writers write … except for when writers don’t write, then things get a little confusing. Commercial writers don’t have the option of giving in to writer’s block or being distracted, they have contracts to fulfill. Freelancers can and do wander away from “the grindstone” occasionally. These are the top excuses: Continue reading “Top 5 Excuses When Writers Don’t Write”
