Xor News

Here’s my summer-time recipe for cold-filtered iced-coffee. If you have had iced-coffee before but it was normal hot-brewed coffee, well, please be seated before taking your first sip. : - )

1. Measure 8 tbs ground coffee into a quart mason jar - a nice full-city roast would be good, or a good breakfast blend, or … oh just about any good fresh coffee will do because some coffee is better than no coffee.
2. Fill the jar with some nice water, give it a stir and put on the lid
3. Place the jar on your kitchen counter, not in direct sun, overnight or 8 hours
4. Strain. I use the gold-wire filter that came with the coffee maker, straining it through twice so that the coffee ends up back in the mason jar.
5. Refrigerate the black gold, elixir of life, uh, the coffee.
6. Put some crushed ice in a tall (or grande, or vente) cup, pour in some coffee until about 2/3 full
7. Top off with cold water
8. Add a little Torani caramel or vanilla bean, perhaps a little cream. To taste
9. Sit back and enjoy

The worst thing about it is, when you want a glass full, you will have had to make it yesterday. Which is hard to do.

Pocket Bible, the html version.

King James Version

American Standard Version

update: fixed links

This is a test, thanks, Sam.
A lot has changed in four years since Sam wrote that article. But there is still a lot of borked UTF-8 i18n handling out there.

So there — Iñtërnâtiônàlizætiøn.

I’ll leave the RTL test to someone braver.

I guess this would be in the “You know you have a problem when…” category, but I don’t want to make one of those because, well, uh, too many things might end up there.

But when you first see one of these, a chisel bladed jack-hammer bit, and the first though is “Man, XML is even pervasive in *that* industry too!”, well, I don’t know what other category it could go in.

Want Biscuit with that Cornus Kousa?

Mr. Ryrie’s notes have it that when Jacob deceived Isaac, Isaac being old and thinking that he was preparing to die, that Isaac went on to live another 43 years. It’s not obvious how he gets this and so here is how it’s done, first in text, then with a picture.

1. Joseph was 39 when Jacob came to Egypt. Jacob was 130 (45:11 + 47:9)
2. Jacob was 91 when Joseph was born (subtract 39 from both sides)
3. Jacob had been in Padan Aram 14 years when Joseph was born (30:25 + 31:41)
4. Jacob was 77 when he stole the blessing and left home (subtract 14 from 91)
5. Isaac was 60 years old when Jacob was born (25:26)
6. Isaac was 137 when Jacob stole the blessing (60 + 77)
7. Isaac lived 43 more years to 180 (35:28)

In the picture, (click to see a larger view) just use the red horizontal arrows to align the columns and work forward from Jacob’s birth and backwards from Joseph in Egypt. Simple.

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Proverbs 6:6

One week later…

Ten days later…

Nice work, ants.

The Savior stood in Jordan’s flood,
  for Him it parted not.
God’s perfect justice requires blood,
  His love the lost be sought.

Calvary’s shadow large and dark
  can’t hide Heaven’s delight.
The lamb of God was baptized there,
  showed forth His grace and light

God sent His son to earth to die,
  Christ willingly agreed.
God’s waves and billows o’er Him poured
  so WE could be made free.

[Joshua 4, John 1]

This is the “Stellar Pink” hybrid. It blooms a few days after the C. Florida. The blooms last longer than C. Florida and it has good disease resistant properties. I like the rich smooth green of the leaves.

This particular instance of “Stellar Pink” is special because it was planted in memory of my grandmother.

Well Buford has always wanted his picture on this website. So there you go — Happy Burthday Buford! I guess having an entire case of monsters on your lap could make anyone act pretty silly.

I was recently reminded by my dear wife (who has known me since I was 7 years old, so I can’t get away with one single thing) that I drank more than my share of caffeine when I was a youth. Quite true. They didn’t have monsters back then, but if they did, I probably would have desired them.