Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Happy Easter: He Is Risen!

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He is risen!

Today, most of the Christian world celebrates Easter—a commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. In his death, celebrated on Good Friday, Jesus gained us pardon from sin. In his resurrection and triumph over death, he restored us to eternal life.

This is the most joyous day in the Christian calendar, and ends the forty days of Lenten prayer and penitence. Liturgically, in Roman Catholic tradition, the joyous ‘Gloria’ and ‘Alleluia’ are sung for the first time in Sunday Mass since Lent began. Our sorrowful focus on our own fallen nature and sinfulness turns, joyously, to a celebration of our forgiveness and eternal life in Jesus Christ. Our forty days of penitence turn to fifty days of Easter celebration.

Personally, Easter also marks our one-year anniversary as Catholics. We entered the church at the Easter Vigil in 2009, which is the evening mass on Saturday and the first (and most solemn, and most joyous) Easter mass. It’s on Saturday because Jewish tradition marks time by sunsets, so the ‘third day’ in scripture actually began at Saturday’s sunset. According to scripture, Jesus rose some time after Saturday’s sunset and before Sunday’s sunrise, because the women came to the tomb to find it empty while it was still dark on Sunday morning.

I wish you all a happy, joyous Easter season. God bless you!

Browser Support Changes; iPad Support

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There have been some changes to browser support for Off on a Tangent, mostly reflecting current browser usage trends.

I’ve dropped official support for a number of smaller, rarely used browsers like K-Meleon, Konqueror, and BeZilla Browser (based of Firefox 2). This doesn’t mean the site won’t work in these browsers, it just means I’m not officially supporting them, I don’t test in them, and any issues affecting users of these browsers will get less attention than issues affecting supported browsers.

I’ve added support for two new-ish WebKit-based browsers, Arora and its distant Haiku OS cousin, WebPositive.

Lastly, I’ve initiated official support for Apple’s new iPad tablet computer (now that an emulator is available free from Apple). The iPad, which launched on Saturday, runs a variant of the iPhone operating system. Right now, it’s supported as a mobile browser (mostly because it’s tough to use the full site’s drop-down menus on a touch-based system). I may change that in the future to default to the full site, if I can come up with a better way to handle the drop-downs. It seems silly to send my stripped-down mobile site to a device like the iPad, which has a screen resolution comparable to that on ‘netbooks’ and small notebooks.

If you have an iPad, let me know whether you prefer the full site or the mobile site. Thanks!

As always, a full list of supported browsers (and screenshots of the site in each) is available on the About the Site page.

Good Friday: The Death of Jesus

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Today is Good Friday, where Christians remember Jesus’s suffering and death on the cross in atonement for our sins. Many Christians don’t think much about this, and are perhaps overly-focused on the resurrection that we celebrate Sunday. Today, however, is the center of the story. Today is where Jesus bought our salvation with his life.

The pain he endured for us is more than any of us will ever have to experience. Crucifixion on its own was a sadistic Roman method of institutional murder that put its victims through incredible pain and suffering, but even before his execution Jesus suffered humiliation, beatings, and insults. They even mocked him on the cross, as if the cross itself were not enough.

This is the part of the story we ponder today. This is, indeed, the whole point of the story. Jesus—the Son of God—condescended to humiliation, suffering, and death so that you, me, and all the other undeserving sinners might have eternal life.

The Anima Christi (‘Soul of Christ’)
14th Century, Author Unknown

Anima Christi, sanctifica me.
Corpus Christi, salva me.
Sanguis Christi, inebria me.
Aqua lateris Christi, lava me.
Passio Christi, conforta me.
O bone Jesu, exaudi me.
Intra tua vulnera absconde me.
Ne permittas me separari a te.
Ab hoste maligno defende me.
In hora mortis meae voca me.
Et iube me venire ad te,
Ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te.
In saecula saeculorum.
Amen		 Soul of Christ, sanctify me
Body of Christ, save me
Blood of Christ, inebriate me
Water from the side of Christ, wash me
Passion of Christ, strengthen me
O good Jesus, hear me
Within Thy wounds hide me
Separated from Thee let me never be
From the malignant enemy defend me
In the hour of my death call me
And bid me come unto Thee
That with thy saints I may praise Thee
Forever and ever
Amen

April Fools Site: OoaT Subscriptions

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On April Fools Day 2010, Off on a Tangent displayed with a modified template that asked users to purchase a site subscription. All content was cut-off after some introductory text and then had a notice asking users to subscribe to read the rest. The announcement read as-follows:

Get Your OoaT Subscription Today!

Effective today, I am instituting a premium subscription system for Off on a Tangent. If you want to gain access to some of the quality content on this website, please consider purchasing an Off on a Tangent subscription. Prices start at only $75/year! This is much less than some of our competitors, and I think  [ . . . ]

Clicking on the various subscription links gave you this information:

Read more . . .

Obama Energy Plan: A Step in the Right Direction

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I promised in my analysis of the 2008 presidential election that, “When [President Barack Obama (D)] walks down the wrong paths, I will call him out. When he walks down the right ones, I will support him.” After getting to call him out quite a lot regarding the monstrosity of a health care bill he signed into law last week, today I get to support him—at least a little.

President Obama announced today that his energy plan will open up sections of the Gulf of Mexico and Virginia coasts for offshore oil and natural gas drilling, although it will also impose unnecessary restrictions on drilling in Alaska. ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ is not the panacea that some on the political right have made it out to be, but a speedy increase in domestic oil production is indeed an urgent necessity in the short term while we try to end our dependence on fossil fuels all-together in the long term. Alternative fuels (nuclear power for our electricity; electric and hydrogen fuel-cell for our cars) are the long term solution for both economic and environmental reasons. Ending our reliance on foreign oil, however, is an urgent economic and national security concern that can and should happen well before we can completely abandon fossil fuels.

A proper, logical energy plan starts with a speedy ramp-up in domestic oil production to provide for our short-term energy needs—gasoline, heating oil, etc.—while major private and public investment goes toward building new nuclear power plants, research and development of hydrogen fuel-cell, implementation of a hydrogen refilling infrastructure, and development of new battery technologies. This is, essentially, the ‘Lexington Project’ proposed by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) during his 2008 presidential campaign. I am quite pleased that Obama has chosen to follow a similar path, even if he seems to have done so (based on the curious timing) to stem the political fallout from his unpopular new health care law.

In case you’re wondering, the Constitution does not explicitly authorize federal control of energy policy so, under normal circumstances, this would be an issue for the states. However, a reduction or elimination of our dependence on foreign oil is a national security issue. Much of our oil money is going to unfriendly and enemy nations and, at least indirectly, to Islamic terrorist groups. The Constitution assigns responsibility for national security issues to the federal government so, unlike the health care bill, energy policy is a federal issue . . . at least for now.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.