As many of you know I work for the Web-Empowered Church and develop the WEC Map extension, I have been working on version 2.0 and was about ready to release, until in one of our QA passes discovered the whole map disappearing in IE7 when anyone clicks on a marker.

Not unfamiliar with IE7’s less than stellar standards support, I suspected Javascript errors, although IE7 didn’t show any. After a few hours of testing it turns out that it was a problem with the template we were using, not anything that I did. Phew! There were two styles that somehow conflicted. I say “somehow” because there is no telling why in the world they should conflict. These were the two styles:

#footer {
  position:relative;
  top:1px;
  background-color: #336699;
  width:100%;
  clear:both;
  margin:0;
  padding:1% 0;
  text-align:center;
  font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
  font-size: .75em;
  color: #FFFFFF;
} 

#right-col {
  position:relative;
  top:-10px;
  right:-10px;
  float:right;
  width:220px;
  voice-family: "\"}\"";
  voice-family:inherit;
  width:180px;
  margin:0 0 -10px 0;
  padding:10px;
  background:#efefef;
  font-size: .75em;
  font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
  z-index:99;
}

I removed the position: relative stuff from the right-col, especially since we already float it, as well as the width from the footer. Then I just had to adjust the margins on the right column to make everything work as expected again:

#footer {
  position:relative;
  top:1px;
  background-color: #336699;
  clear:both;
  margin:0;
  padding:1% 0;
  text-align:center;
  font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
  font-size: .75em;
  color: #FFFFFF;
}   

#right-col {
  float:right;
  width:220px;
  voice-family: "\"}\"";
  voice-family:inherit;
  width:180px;
  margin:-10px -10px -10px 0;
  padding:10px;
  background:#efefef;
  font-size: .75em;
  font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
  z-index:99;
}

Don’t ask me why or how. That’s Internet Explorer for you. If you at all can, please do not use it. Use Safari or Opera or Firefox instead. The only reason us web guys still wrestle with IE is because the majority of people still uses it. That, and Microsoft is apparently incapable or unwilling to do anything about it. IE8 looks hopeful, but to really get up to par I think we will have to wait a few more years.

In Genesis 1, God creates man in His image. That is a truly great thing and sets us apart from any other creature because no one else is said to be awarded that same privilege. Man in the image of God is the reason for the death penalty, instantiated in Genesis 9, repeated in the Mosaic Law, affirmed by Jesus, and reaffirmed by Paul. Genesis 9:6 reads: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.”

It’s clear that being made in the image of God is something spectacular and awesome, so it’s somewhat surprising that the bible gives no further details as to what exactly that means. That’s why I would like to give some educated guesses for it here. I believe the combination of these make up the image of God in us since individual points can also be attributed to other beings.

First, we are free moral agents. As opposed to animals, which only act on instinct and are incapable of making moral judgements, we are capable of it. Angels, however, are also free moral agents because some of them decided to rebel against God, yet angels are not said to be made in God’s image.

Second, we can relate to God. So do angels, after all they see him in all his glory, but we are different in the aspect of salvation. Angels are irredeemable, so they cannot experience salvation like we can, they don’t relate to God like we do. 1 Peter 1:12 mentions that, talking about salvation: “It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven–things into which angels long to look.” Angels observe us to learn more about God’s grace and salvation, lived out by Christians.

Third, we are able to procreate. Angels are not, but animals are, too. By God’s design, we procreate in the God-ordained institution of marriage, which seals together a man and a woman as one flesh. Also, though God still creates every baby, we are physically responsible for creating human life made in God’s image. As a soon-to-be father I can say that it’s one – if not the – most amazing thing I have ever experienced.

Lastly, we were given dominion over this earth. God gave all of creation for man to rule over right after he created man. Paul even says that we will judge angels. We were made as rulers right under God over all creation.

All these aspects together make us different than all other created beings. There is no biblical support for these being tied together with being made in the image of God, so take it as an educated guess. Either way, it’s difficult not to stand in awe of how great God created us!

 

Update: Unfortunately the link doesn’t work anymore since WotM Radio is now Wretched Radio. If anyone still has that mp3 and could send it to me, that would be awesome!

Hah! I made it on the radio today! Alright, I wasn’t talking, but one of my emails was read on Way of the Master Radio today! You can check it out on their website. It’s the March 28, 2008 show, Hour 2, right at the 21:55 marker. Fame!!!

This week I went to my 80 year old Electrical Circuits professor’s office hours to get a few questions answered. He asked me to put one of the equations we had come up with into my calculator, to which my response was that my calculator doesn’t do equations with more than one unknown.

His reply: ”You can’t be a mechanic without a wrench. You need the right tool for the job!”

So I decided to get myself a new wrench; a HP 50g calculator:

It can solve any number of equations with any number of unknowns, numerical and symbolical calculus, matrices, differential equations, Laplace transforms, Taylor series expansions, vector and statistical analysis, complex numbers, and tons of other things I don’t know about yet. Oh, and the most important thing: RPN (Reverse Polish Notation). I got used to it in no time and can’t imagine not using it anymore. It’s so fast!

Looks like Opera now gets 100/100 on the Acid3 test, as does WebKit.

Opera’s rendering still has a few bugs and the WebKit guys are still working out the performance, but this is a great step in the right directions.
Unlike Opera, which only achieved this in an internal, non-public build, you can actually download a WebKit nightly and try the test for yourself.

For those unfamiliar with the test, there is a great Wikipedia page about it. In short, it’s a test that makes sure browser are standard compliant with the latest technology in order to assure the same functionality for all the cool new stuff on all browsers. Unfortunately Internet Explorer is very very very bad about that, and Firefox isn’t that great either, so for now it’s Safari/Webkit and Opera leading the pack!

Update: Opera now has a public build out that passes Acid3 scorewise, see the two new screenshots attached above. There are still more performance problems in the Opera build than the WebKit one, so for now WebKit is ahead!

I stopped using Bittorrent a long time ago and for the few things that I have been downloading (mainly [Gamersyde trailers](http://gamersyde.com/) and [Neooffice](http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/download.php “NeoOffice Downloads”)) I have been using Azureus. After some kind of network hiccup at home and NAT problems with Azureus, I tried to find another client and found [Transmission](http://transmissionbt.com). I am pretty blown away! It doesn’t have as many features, but a beautiful interface and everything you could possibly need! I especially like that it monitors a folder for new torrent files and automatically adds those. Sweet!

These are my wife’s initials now. Well, at least could be. The R.V.T. part stands for Registered Veterinary Technician, which means she passed her boards and is now an R.V.T.! I knew it all along; she’s very smart Congrats!!

Hello all!

Baby news! As promised, the first picture of our kid (upside down):

He (we don’t know his gender but decided to call him a he until we know otherwise) is 12 weeks 3 days old. You can probably see the head and body and all. The lost white spot in the top right corner is one of his hands. He was moving around so fast, all we could see was the motion blur I am sure he is practicing kung fu and running a marathon. He’s healthy, well developed, heartbeat 142 bpm.

Stay tuned for more info in the coming weeks and months!

Christoph