Jonathan Lange

Still Watching This Space?

2007-08-23T08:38:58Z

Hello all,

I'm not posting on LJ any more -- please update your feeds to http://mumak.net.

However, if Livejournal is your only way of interacting with the blogging world, then you may be interested in http://jonathanlange.livejournal.com. Thanks to Mary for setting it up for me.

jml

Blog Moved Permanently

2007-08-04T03:28:44Z

Hello all,

I'm going to be blogging from mumak.net from now one. This blog will receive no more posts. Please update your RSS feeds.

I'll try to arrange syndication for LJ users soon.

jml

Things of Note

2007-05-05T08:32:47Z

Blag

2007-03-24T21:26:26Z

Last night I had a conversation with a friend of mine who is both ill and a poet. We were talking about blogging. We don't normally talk about blogging, honest.

Ben had asked fellow blogger Shiloh whether blogging drained her creativity for other enterprises. Shiloh said no. Uhh... just having looked at some of the recent posts, I can believe that.

Anyway, Ben doesn't blog because he thinks his blog would be boring. It's too restrictive writing about one character, he says. Ben thinks his blog would be boring.

Now, I admire Ben's fiction and poetry a lot. If Ben wanted to make something interesting, he probably could. Also, he's not that boring. But I can sympathise, my blogs bore me to tears.

Word I dislike: motorcade.
Word I like: disingenuous.

Five Things

2007-02-16T23:52:34Z

Here are the five things you probably don't know about me. It took a lot of soul searching and imaginative interpretation to come up with five things that are new, true, decent and unlikely to stir up litigation.

1. Youth

Now, many of you know that I grew up in a town lying deep in the heart of redneck country called Kingaroy. I went to both primary and secondary school in that town.

Once, I woke up, made my bed, put on my clothes, underwear, shirt, socks, shoes, hat, and then went out to have breakfast. I must have been seven or eight at the time. My little brother James asks me, "Ready for school then, Jono?".

"Yeah, of course." At this point, I do a mental check. Shoes, hat, port, pencils. All ready.

"Then where are your shorts?"

James and Lizzie have never let me live that one down.

2. Habit

I am a chronic leaner. Leaning is my favourite stance. I find it more comfortable than sitting or than lying down.

I didn't find this out until I moved into King St, a massive house with five other people in it. For fun, we would watch eight episodes of Spooks in a row, argue about music and deconstruct each others' characters.

3. Mind

I can almost quote the entire script of Auntie Mame off by heart.

I don't know how this happenend. It was one of my late grandmother's favourite films, and is one of my mother's favourites too. I guess I watched it early and often enough to have it stick in there.

4. Achievement

The only books that I have started and not finished are Vanity Fair, Three Dollars, Les Miserables and 1412. I think.

5. Youth II

OK. Doing two "Young Jono" things is probably cheating a little, but I don't care. It's Glyph's stupid fault for dobbing me in.

I cried excessively as a child. I could be easily provoked to tears until I was about eleven or twelve years old. I don't know why.

I name Andrew, Bron, Pablo, Jp and Randall Munroe (ok, it's a bit of a long shot).

Five Whole Things?

2007-02-03T01:44:58Z

Glyph just tagged me with the "Five Things" chain mail. Bloody hell. I'm going to have a lot of trouble coming up with five interesting things that are not generally known about me.

Expect some delay before I post my Five Things.

Points of Interest

2007-01-10T12:13:05Z

I am coming to the end of several weeks of work for Divmod. It was a lot of fun.

I am going to LCA 2007. I think it will be fun.

I have moved into an office in Hobart. I'm sharing with three other guys. It's way easier to focus.

I just got back from cleaning said office.

On the 22nd, I will start work with Canonical. I'm really excited.

I'll be in Sydney from Jan 13 to Jan 26

New Year's Resolution: To start and finish something significant for which I have no particular aptitude.

I'm not sure if xzelan will ever read this. However if he does, I want to tell him, "Nyah, nyah. I told you so :P"

I injured my left elbow. It is missing skin.

Read Brothers Karamazov (*awesome*), Freakanomics, The Man Who Was Thursday and as much as I'm ever going to read of 1421. I'm reading The King of Elfland's Daughter and Practical Common Lisp. This year's reading plans include Augustine's Confessions, Critique of Pure Reason and Hero With A Thousand Faces.

How my beliefs affect my job

2006-12-05T08:21:31Z

Crossroads asked me to give a five minute talk on how my belief in Jesus affects my job. I wrote the talk out in full while preparing it. What follows is a slightly edited version of my notes. I've removed any references to the audience, polished up the formatting and made some things closer to what I actually said on the night.

Now that this is online, there's a chance that some of my coworkers could actually read it. To those who do: I have tried hard not to paint myself as better than I am. Still, you perhaps know better than I how much room I have to improve. If anything here rings hollow, please email me.

How My Faith Affects My Job, Crossroads, 3rd December 2006

Someone once asked Jesus, out of all the things you've said and out of all the
Scriptures, what is the most important thing to do, what is the greatest
commandment? Jesus replied, there is one God, love him with all of your heart,
your mind, your soul and your strength.

If someone asked me what my religion means to my job, I'd have to start with
that. I try to follow Jesus, and Jesus says that loving God with all my being
is the most important thing I need to do, so I try to do that. I don't always
try successfully, and sometimes I don't even try, but that's the life decision
I've made.

Actually I should make this clear. I didn't just sit down, open up a Bible,
read Jesus' words "Love the Lord your God" and decide to give my heart to God.
I don't want to give that impression. Any love I have for Jesus is not a thing
which I have worked up in myself. What happened was I sat down with some
friends who opened a Bible and showed me the amazing thing that Jesus had done
for me. And when I finally got it, it was so heart-breakingly wonderful that I
couldn't help but love him for it.

I want to love God with all of my being, and that means I want to love him all
the time. I can't love someone totally but only on Sundays—it doesn't make
sense. So, my religion affects my job.

Once I tried to obey this great commandment by working for God full-time. I
used to work for Crossroads, doing chores, praying with people, praying for
people, studying the Bible, teaching the Bible and so forth. Now these are all
great things to do, but doing them didn't mean I was loving God with all my
being, or even with all of my time. Working for the church meant that my work
was more relevant to the great work that God is doing right now. Personally, it
also meant that God was on my mind a lot more.

Nowadays, I work as a programmer. When you work as a programmer, you can't fool
yourself into thinking you are doing the holy, sacred work of God. I spend most
of my day, sitting in front of a laptop trying to make the infernal contraption
do what I tell it to. During the day, my mind isn't really on God or Jesus or
anything 'spiritual' like that. My mind is, mostly, on my job. I think that's a
good thing.

So what does it mean to love the one God with all my heart, my soul,
my mind and my strength as a computer programmer?

Well I don't know! It's something I'm still thinking about, praying about and
talking about with my friends. Here's what I'm thinking now: It's not so much
what I do, it's who I am.

You know what, there's a way in which it's almost impossible for my beliefs to
affect my work as a programmer. A Buddhist would build the same programs as I
do, an atheist would build the same programs as I do, E.T. would build
the same programs as I do.

But I want to be a person who pleases God. And in my day, like everyone here, I
make a thousand small decisions about what to do, what to say, how I say it,
how much energy I put into something, what I eat, whose advice I take.
Thousands of things. In all of those little decisions, one of the things that's
always there is: is this the kind of person God wants me to be. Now a lot of
the time I ignore that, or more often rationalise it away—not a good
person. Still, it's there, I want to please God. And the more I know of how
much love God has poured out on me, the more I want to please him.

But what does that actually look like in my working day? I try to work hard for
my employer, giving them the best part of my energy and creativity. I try to
make peace in the heated arguments that happen online. I try to take the crummy
jobs. I try to keep my promises and not make exaggerated claims.

I know all sorts people do these things for all sorts of reasons. I do them
because I love Jesus.

Somebody brought it upon themself

2006-11-28T02:30:46Z

Thanks to the Language Log (just google it), I came across a linguistic humour website. On that site, I came across a helpful page on their used as a gender-neutral singular.

I had already switched to using 'their' for gender-neutral singular, but felt vaguely uneasy about the decision. It was like deciding to wear shorts after a long winter. The same uncertainty churned up my confidence. Now I'm happy.

Recent Activities

2006-11-12T02:18:15Z

Work

Since I've finished my apprenticeship, I've been working for Divmod Inc. So far it's been a lot of fun.

Cafes

I like to spend a lot of time in cafes. I like coffee, and I find the cafe atmosphere helps me work. I think getting away from the internet helps too. Recently, I discovered Petite Toulouse, hiding where Oomph! Coffee Roasters used to be.

Petite Toulouse has a nice vibe. They still use the delicious and award-winning Oomph! coffee, but their barista's aren't as trained. Still, it's a beautiful venue and it has nice couches around the back. Unfortunately, it's not enough to knock Retro off its pedestal in my heart.

Driving

I went driving for three hours last week. It's incredibly stressful. Still, I'm told I did well for my first time.

Reading

A History of Chinese Civilization, Jacques Gernet—FINISHED!
The Peaceable Kingdom, Stanley Hauerwas
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Alan Moore et al
Kingdom Come, Mark Waid, Alex Ross
Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman et al
Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman et al
Well of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
The Big Over Easy, Jasper Fforde
V for Vendetta, Alan Moore

I think that's all the reading since I last posted about my reading. I may have made mistakes either way.

Finally finished Gernet's monster Chinese history. Great book. Glad I'm finished.

Hauerwas' primer on Christian ethics was very thought-provoking. Could have done with a heavy handed editor (Stanley, do you really need to have four negatives in this sentence?) but otherwise was very good. I may blog more about this.

I've been reading a lot of comics recently. Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman rock my world. I didn't like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen very much. On the other hand, V for Vendetta is amazing. I know the film is a very good action film, and might even be thought provoking. People who've seen come out with renewed scepticism and antipathy toward the present American regime. The book is better. It is a whole new level of better. It's about anarchy, not liberal democracy. It's about a people who get what they deserve, not a people who have been duped and oppressed.

Neil Gaiman is awesome. Nuff said.

Kingdom Come is also a comic and is fairly weird. It's the first real 'superhero' comic that I've bought, and I'm not certain I like it. It definitely looks very pretty.

Jasper Fforde is smarter than I, more creative than I, better read than I and a better writer than I. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to keep reading his books.

Games

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was a lot of fun. Best absolutely everying. Jade Empire is good, but it's not as fun. They seem to have moved KotOR to ancient China. It even has a Star Wars morality.

There is no need to panic

2006-10-23T23:04:06Z

I have finally got my learner's license. That means I'm allowed to drive a car on actual roads, provided I'm properly supervised and so forth.

The normal routine is for teenagers to get their learner's license six months before their 17th birthday. It's a rite of passage thing that I skipped, being busy with work and university at the time.

Now I've got to get fifty hours of supervised driving time, wait six months and, you know, learn to drive

How shall I complete the wall?

2006-10-14T01:38:36Z

So, I bought another copy of The Wall. I think it has all the tracks. Unlike the other copy, it only has Roman script on its cover.

Sydney is very hot. It is difficult to sleep when it is very hot.

Vietnamese food is very nice.

French toast, bacon and maple syrup are meant to go together.

I really like Sydney. I also like my home in Hobart.

There is a café in the CBD of Sydney called G-Spot. I've been there more than once. I like it. It reminds me of Hobart cafés.

How shall I fill the final places?

2006-10-11T10:03:27Z

Got my phone back.

I bought a copy of The Wall that is missing a track. Young Lust is completely missing. It doesn't appear on the CDs artwork, and the lyrics have been erased from the booklet.

Cargo Pants of Escape

2006-10-07T13:32:58Z

I lost my backup phone tonight. Don't run wearing the cargo pants of escape.

Can anyone recommend a new phone? (Also, yes, I lost everyone's number again. Please get in touch).

Many Kindnesses Unable To Be Reciprocated

2006-10-06T12:57:34Z

There was some really bad turbulence on the way out of Hobart. It got pretty frightening. Luckily no one chucked me out. We survived.

CHRis and Sam met me at the airport. I talked their ears off and they are still friends with me. In fact, CHRis is letting me stay at his place.

Done

2006-10-06T12:46:56Z

Finished my apprenticeship.

On holidays. One week in Sydney (people, hacking), another week in Hobart (dvds, bludging). Then, who knows?

Five

2006-10-01T21:47:13Z

Five days to go.

I want to use them properly. That means not working too much on Twisted.

Riddles

2006-10-01T04:05:38Z

The book of Proverbs says this:

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you will be like him yourself.

Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes.

The Skeptics Annotated Bible lists this as a contradiction. Obviously the authors don't use IRC.

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer

2006-09-29T12:28:44Z

So, the other day, I was reading Luke at the Retro Café. I think I got up to about Chapter 12 before I realised that one of the book's major themes is money.

It seems that in every second paragraph, Jesus is either teaching about money, or he's teaching about the kingdom and using money as an illustration. Like I said, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

My financial situation will probably change soon. My apprenticeship is ending (Oct 20 is the final date, btw) and after that I'll either be unemployed or be earning a professional wage. I wish I could say that I've been able to draw comfort from Jesus' teachings in Luke. Instead, I've been quite seriously challenged, and I don't really know what I'm going to do.

Little Bits of News

2006-09-11T04:04:16Z

I've finished my preaching series at Kingston. The first two talks went fairly well -- at least I got a lot of positive feedback. The third was a bit of a schemozzle though. It really is important to know what you intend to say before you start saying it.

I was pretty sick last weekend, so I skipped Crossroads. That means that yesterday was the first time I've been there in a month. It's good see the brothers again.

We've set on October 22nd the absolutely-the-last day of my MTS apprenticeship. The arrangement is quite flexible -- if I find work before then, I'm allowed to leave with minimal notice. Speaking of finding work, I'm almost finished my CV. I'm looking forward to sending the thing off.

Joybot is churning along, and the HERO campaign has got off the ground. I've had to revise how I think of my evenings in order to keep everything under control.

I'm dying to get stuck into some Trial hacking, and also to polish a few things off my reading list, which is now knee-high.

After using a PDA (Palm Zire) for a few months, I've decided that I preferred keeping my system on my laptop, and carrying around pen-and-paper to capture new inputs. I'll switch back when I get the chance.

Also, now that Blogger has tags (well, the beta version does), I'll probably be switching there. Will keep blackjml.livejournal.com as my tech blog.

Christian Ubuntu makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable. It seems like an inappropriate category for an operating system. What's next? King Island Brie for Christians? BMW z3 (Apostolic Series)?

Poster

2006-08-23T03:26:46Z

I've had my eye on this poster for a while. Finally bought it for the house.

He is happy because of the coffee. I like to think that the parcels are full of turkish delight.

Procrastination

2006-08-19T14:22:43Z

This last week I've had two largish jobs that I've not particularly wanted to do. The first is prepare a sermon for Sunday. The second is convert a raft of notes into a written report. I've been procrastinating a little from both of them.

Looking back, there's one form of procrastination that has been particularly insidious. Whenver I've had an opportunity to work on either, I've wasted huge amounts of time trying to decide which one. Should I do the sermon? That's due this Sunday. What about the report? That's due sometime later this month. I should check my calendar. I guess I could do a bit on the report, but then I'd really have to make sure the sermon gets done. When will I next have a block of time to work on it? I guess I'll check my calendar again. Oh, I'm meeting Christian today -- better text him to make sure he turns up.

Nauseating, isn't it?

God willing, now that I've spotted the beast, I'll be able to slay it next time.

On The Go

2006-08-16T10:35:19Z

I'm busier than usual at the moment. Here's what's going on.

(Update: Fixed broken links)

Preaching

I'm preaching a series of talks on Romans 8 at Kingston Christian Reformed Church. I've done one talk and I have two more to go. Pray for me.

Finishing MTS

I've decided to quit MTS. After much thought and prayer, I've decided that I won't be going into full-time paid Christian ministry in the short-term. That decided, it seems good and right to wrap up my apprenticeship as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, that takes a lot of work. It's much more difficult than quitting a hacking job. Speaking of hacking jobs...

Looking for Work

Given that I'm quitting one job, I need to find a new place to work. There are a couple of companies that I have my eye on, but I'm leaving things fairly open. Getting the CV done properly is the next big step.

GMing a HERO Campaign

I have absolutely no idea why I decided to do this. It will be fun and exciting, but why on earth did I volunteer to run the thing? Anyway, it will be run over IRC with a few of my friends and one stranger. It's called Swords Against Villainy and is set in the Turakian Age, a setting published by Hero Games.

Writing a Bot

Running a HERO game online means that I've had to write an IRC bot to handle all the dice rolling and stuff. I've been working on it with the redoubtable RAOF. It's called Joybot and it has a ~~myspace~~ Launchpad site.

Other Things

Trial, Tribunal, subunit and my paper on testing GUIs are all by the wayside temporarily. If I do get around to writing the paper, I think I'll submit it to linux.conf.au, rather than OSDC.

Life

One flatmate moved out, another moved in. This took a fair bit of my time, but it's all over with. My new flatmate is very nice, and just a little cleaner than my old one.

In my spare time, I am drowning in a well of uncertainty. Suprisingly, this is often pleasant.

Multiple Choice

2006-08-06T23:15:14Z

1. A heart is thrown at your feet, you:

a) Step on it.
b) Put it on the shelf next to all the others for later processing.
c) Gently give it back.
d) Pick it up and keep it.
e) None of the above (please specify).

All things considered, c. isn't so bad.

Garbage Disposal

2006-08-04T08:43:12Z

I've never been able to keep a diary. My old friend and former mentor used to try to make me keep one. He would froth and foam at me in his kind-hearted way, trying to get me to write something real. I could never do it. Not that I wrote fiction either, I'd always write dull things about my day. Or else, I'd pad out my entry with waffle to reach the required length.

My life is really not that interesting. Most days, there is nothing dramatic or insightful. Sometimes I do learn things, but I have no idea how to repeat them without making them seem trite. For example, "I think too highly of myself" and "The Holy God still loves me despite my sin" are profound truths that have changed my heart this last week. How am I supposed to tell you that I've been humbled before God and men without spending hours framing the story and forming the sentences? How can I convince you that despite the pain at the time, the whole experience has given me greater joy, peace and freedom? I really doubt that anyone would believe me.

Or consider this,

"[Some time ago], I was being driven insane by [action] that [friend] keeps doing. I spoke to [pronoun (objective)] and [pronoun (subjective)] refused to do anything about it. So I [[[select one of:

am going to grumble incessantly about it to everyone I meet who won't repeat it to [friend].
have struggled and prayed until I realised again that God has forgiven me many worse sins than [action], and that it would be shameful for me to not forgive [friend].
have done both these things and deeply repent the former

]]]"

I sound like a whinging git. Now, I may be a whinging git, but I would very much like to be otherwise. I don't even want to be a thankful git or a whinging otherwise-decent-human. If I avoid sounding like a whinging git, then I still hurt my friend. Why bother?

One friend of mine is a very gifted writer. He can turn the mundane into the wondrous. He can turn car trips to Launceston into existential voyages. I love his writing, but I can't imitate it (I've tried). And when it comes to car trips, I don't think I want to.

See, a real blogger would never say "one friend of mine". A real blogger would say "Ben" and link to his blog. Of course, Ben doesn't have a blog — he's a real writer — but details like that would never stop the truly great.

My blog is the wrong place for my life, and it's also the wrong forum for my ideas. The ideas that are delivered here seem to be misshapen, stillborn things. Worse, sometimes they are rants. As for reviews of books and films, I am extremely dissatisfied with them: I seem incapable of saying anything interesting about the works I love most.

I have a blog where I post technical stuff. I also have another blog where I post my creative writing. That one is anonymous, and I haven't told a soul where it is.

The scraps can go here.