$ sudo think *

Ambiguity and the Biblcal Text: A Brief Introduction to Textual Criticism (Part I)

2011-04-02T05:53:00.000-07:00

Whenever attempting to articulate my positions about the Bible, I invariably state that the single most augmenting factor in my biblical education has proven to be a knowledge of the biblical languages. In my opinion, exegetical decisions about a translated text in the end can amount to nothing more than exegesis of an already interpreted text, viz. the interpretation of a secondary source. That said, most English translations do a good job communicating the biblical text, and furthermore, the ready availability of [seemingly] countless translations, concordances, and other biblical reference works can give even the non-specialist reasonable access to the meaning of most Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic words and phrases used in the Bible. So what's so special about learning the languages?

Lifting the Veil

There's something especially deceptive about "a Bible"—I don't mean "deceptive" in a bad way, but when one sees a clean leather cover wrapped around thousands of uniformly thin sheets of paper, typeset with the same font and running page count all written at an 8th Grade level, it's easy to think about the Bible as it were "a" book rather than a collection of books written over the course of several hundred years and touched by as many hands. It masks not only the language barrier between the reader and the authors, but the barriers between the authors themselves.

Even more fundamentally, it masks the material witnesses of the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts that underlie most English translations—of which no two are exactly alike. I say witnesses very intentionally because the text that underlies nearly every modern translation doesn't represent any one manuscript, but instead represents a "critical" text compiled and edited by scholars through a process called textual criticism.

The Goal of Textual Criticism

This process is the means by which scholars try to reconcile differences between manuscripts and provide the most plausible "original" reading of a text. Most modern scholars agree that the goal of textual criticism—to find the "original" reading of a text—while laudable, is, quite simply, impossible to achieve. As with any historical endeavor, there exists no way to "prove" that a given reading represents the original. Instead scholars must settle for a certain amount of ambiguity and acknowledge that even in spite of overwhelming evidence, there always exists some doubt—however slight—that a reading is wrong. That said, many discrepancies between textual witnesses can be restored with a reasonable amount of certainty.

Textually Transmitted Disease: Accidental and Methodical Corruptions

Most commonly, differences between texts arose through the copying process, what scholars refer to as "textual transmission" and which happened exclusively by hand in the ancient world (note that the word "manuscript" literally means "written by hand"). Most errors of this type come about by a phenomenon known as parablepsis, literally, errors caused by "looking to the side." This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has ever transcribed a text—it is quite easy to lose one's place, skip words, repeat sections, and otherwise corrupt the text being copied (the "Vorlage") as one glances back and forth "to the side." Often, these errors, rather than being corrected, were copied by the next scribe intending to faithfully reproduce his Vorlage. The image is one of a tree—the trunk representing the "original" and the branches representing divergent copies. As each copy itself is copied, it carries with it the corruptions of its ancestors and possibly introduces its own. The goal of the textual critic is to start at the outer-most branch and trace his or her path back to the trunk.

Scribes, however, were not mindless drones dispassionately copying texts. While they had a great deal of respect for the biblical text, they had no delusions that they were copying it perfectly. As scribes noticed differences between texts, they were forced to make critical decisions about what to do. Most commonly, instead of picking one of the readings, scribes would combine (or "conflate") texts. This phenomenon happens frequently with divine name/epithet combinations (like Iēsous christos, and yhwh ʾelohênû). When given the choice between Iēsous and christos, the scribe would often choose to include both. The same thing occurs with larger units even full pericopae.

Similarly, when presented with a difficult word or phrase, scribes would often add a marginal note, known as a gloss to help the reader understand—for example—an infrequently used word. Unfortunately, the margins were the home of numerous other scribal edits—including words, phrases, and pericopae that they had accidentally left out. Rater than chance leaving out part of the biblical text, scribes would sometimes incorporate these editorial comments into the text, which would then be copied by another scribe, etc.

For this reason, one of the most fundamental principles of textual criticism—especially of the Bible—is lectio brevior preferenda est, which means "the shorter reading is to be preferred." Because scribes were more inclined toward expanding texts, generally speaking and all other considerations the same, the shorter of any two readings should be preferred.

However, lectio brevior cannot account for all differences (omissions from the text being an obvious example). Sometimes two texts are just different. In these situations, scholars often use the principle lectio difficilior preferenda est, which means "the more difficult reading is to be preferred." Because scribes had a tendency to make readings easier—which is to say, to clean-up confusing grammar or harmonize with other parallel texts—generally speaking and all other factors the same, the reading that makes less sense should be given priority.

Closing Remarks

As one might imagine, the actual situation is much more complex. To extend our tree metaphor, we might imagine that through the course of some unfortunate event, we are left with only a few branches scattered around the base where our tree once stood. To a certain extent we may be able to deduce the approximate position of each branch relative to the others and see the general shape and direction of each branch, but we would have to be content with not actually being able to see the whole tree. Moreover if we always went with the shorter and more difficult texts, we would end up with an [albeit brief] unintelligible "original" text. Because of this, the overarching methodological principle of textual criticism remains that the reading that best accounts for the other readings should be preferred. It is important to remember that these "principles" are not "laws"—there are always exceptions. While there certainly are "typical" mistakes made through textual transmission, each text-critical decision should be treated in its own right, unique and without precedent.

Sex and the Single Savior

2010-01-31T13:25:00.000-08:00

I've put-off reading this book for several years but only now understand how much I had missed. The book is, of course, Dale B. Martin's Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation (Westminster John Knox: 2006). Before I launch into the the specifics of his arguments concerning sexuality, I'd like to take a step back and discuss some of the critical methods that Dale Martin uses in the book. In fact, much of the book's argument hinges on his method, and for that reason I think it deserves a closer look.

Having recently completed Elizabeth Clarks's History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Harvard: 2004), and Phyllis Trible's Texts of Terror (Fortress: 1984), I felt fairly well primed for the task of reading texts of a more post-modern bent. That said, where Clark and Trible pushed me to think critically of my typical modus operandi (viz. a historical–critical method), Martin put the final nail in the coffin of historical positivism and send it down to Davy Jones' Locker.

Of course, Martin does not dismiss historical–critical method as a discipline (he would, after all, be dismissing his own discipline), rather he contends that historical-critical method by itself is insufficient for interpreting the Bible as scripture. First, Martin addresses the fact that "Texts do not interpret themselves; they must be interpreted by human beings." Martin writes,"Texts don't mean, people mean with texts." I find it telling that when reading any text, it is very common for us to ask "what does the text say?" when what we really mean is "after reading the text, how do you understand it?" In fact using a text as the subject of an active verb really doesn't make sense, it only makes sense with a passive verb, e.g. texts do not "speak," but "are read." This idea undercuts what he calls the "Myth of textual agency," which equates the meaning of a text with the meaning of the author of the text.

As a person raised in a thoroughly "modernist" church, I naturally agree, as I learned in Bible college, that "a text cannot mean what it never meant." The "original" meaning is the only true meaning and any other meanings are wrong. And so the role of the interpreter becomes one of a historian, trying to determine the "historical" meaning of the text. But here's where the trouble comes, a "historian," contrary to popular belief, does not study the past, but rather attempts to reconstruct (or, as Martin would say, "construct") the past. The "past" is not something that can be studied—it cannot be pulled into a lab and dissected, parsed, or otherwise probed; the past does not presently exist. The "original" meaning of a text also does not exist to be studied or verified in any meaningful way. And so arguments from authorial intention and "original meaning" fall apart.

Along with authorial intention and "original meaning" falls textual foundationalism. The notion that the text is the basis of "faith and practice" as my tradition puts it suddenly doesn't make as much sense. The "common sense" thinking of Campbell and others is simply a farce. The historical "consensus" that the Enlightenment thought would come about by its ad fontes/historical-critical approach has proven to be equally disappointing. Even within my own tradition—a unity movement whose only creed was "Christ" and whose sole measure of faith and practice was the New Testament—has split into three distinct "streams" (and if more structure had existed, surely would have split many more times). We use phrases like "in the essentials, unity; in the non-essentials, grace," yet we can't agree on what the non-essentials are, let alone what the essentials are.

Ironically, early Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Bible had little concern for authorial intention either—some of the most important and profound Christological interpretations in the Gospels, Paul, and throughout Acts have no "historical" basis whatsoever. One certainly can argue (and many have) that the authors did "predict" Christ, but this is a faith statement and says nothing to the effectuality of historical methodology. More likely (and reasonably, to my mind), the New Testament authors are reinterpreting the meaning of the OT texts, and as christians, we affirm that we believe those interpretations to be "inspired."

However, the NT authors put us into a bit of a predicament when it comes to interpreting the Bible as the Church today. Since we can acknowledge that the NT authors didn't play by the same interpretive rules that we have structured for ourselves, we're left to wonder whether they knew something we seem not to—that reading and interpreting scripture for the Church ought to be a spiritual discipline rather than an academic or historical one. Moreover, it should shed light on the inadequacy of any one interpretive method to properly inform the Church.

Dethroning history (and again let me emphasize "history" should not be equated to "what actually happened"; contra Ranke) as the lord and savior of biblical interpretation for the church can be rather unnerving, not least because we have clung so tightly to historical interpretation as the gold standard of what is "correct" and "incorrect" for so long, but also because we are left to ask "how can we know what is right?" Martin's closing chapter addresses that question precisely, he writes:

But how do we know our interpretations of Scripture will not be misrepresentations? How can we guard against unethical uses of the Bible? Are there no standards, methods, or safeguards against the misuse of Scripture? (181)

As you no doubt have guessed by now, Martin's (and my) answer is simply, "no." We are left to interpret the Bible through intentional lenses, with checks and balances that we think are in accord with the Spirit. He closes with an illustration from Kierkegaard:

Spiritual existence, especially the religious, is not easy; the believer continually lies out on the deep, has 70,000 fathoms of water beneath him. However long he lies out there, this still does not mean that he will gradually end up lying and relaxing onshore. He can become more calm, more experienced, find a confidence that loves jest and cheerful temperament—but until the very last he lies out on 70,000 fathoms of water. (from Stages on Life's Way in Martin, 184)

My own sensibilities are confirmed by this idea—I don't think a certain faith is faith at all. It doesn't really matter how deep the water is if you can't touch the bottom anyway. Faith is learning to swim, how to function when you can't touch the bottom—let alone see it.

A Goat for Azazel

2009-11-17T10:23:00.000-08:00

I always seem to end up writing papers about demons and hell. I don't know why.

I just submitted this for a grade this morning, so don't point out any spelling errors. That will just make me mad.

A Goat for Azazel

Living the Story

2009-10-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

I've recently allocated considerable amounts of thought to the concepts of "history," "historiography," and "meta-narrative." More specifically, I've been pondering how it is that we, as people, relate to the past and how we understand it to be "true." My Old Testament Introduction class has cultivated many questions concerning my own conception and understanding of "past" and has called into question the way that I—as a child, teen, and young adult—uncritically accepted the biblical text as objective historiography.

For example, the account of the so-called "fall" of Adam and Eve in the garden by all other standards would be considered a typical Near-Eastern creation myth—complete with talking animals, anthropomorphic descriptions and interactions with gods, and etiological elements to spare—but because it is in the Bible, it must be "true." In this case, (primarily) Christian theologians have taken the narrative of the "fall" and made claim that it represents the ontological truth, viz. that on October 23rd 4004 BCE, YHWH created the universe and a few days later Adam and Eve screwed it up for the rest of us.

Another example from the primeval period is Noah and the flood. Most Bible college students are aware that there were other flood stories that circulated throughout the Ancient Near East well before the biblical period, but often these are seen as "corroborating evidence" for an actual event rather than a literary tradition that the Bible drew from. Take for instance Atrahasis. Atrahasis (lit. "exceedingly wise") was a man who was saved by the god Enki, while the other cheif gods (Anu and Enlil) were trying to kill-off humans for being too noisy—a sentiment I often share. The final attempt to destroy the human race—by a flood—was thwarted by Enki when he warns Atrahasis to disassemble his house and build a boat. Atrahasis is saved, along with his family and the many animals that he loaded-up with him. After the flood, the gods devise a way to control the human population. Sound familiar? How about this:

Gilgamesh, while seeking the secret to eternal life, finally finds the one human who was given the gift of immortality—Utnapishtim. While talking with Utnapishtim, he recounts a very similar story to the one described above with Atrahasis—with a few additions. For instance, once the waters were receding...

The boat had come to rest on Mount Nimush.
The mountain Nimush held the boat fast and did not let it budge.
The first and second day the mountain Nimush
held the boat fast and did not let it budge.
The third and fourth day the mountain Nimush
held the boat fast and did not let it budge.
The fifth and sixth day the mountain Nimush
held the boat fast and did not let it budge.
When the seventh day arrived, I put out and released a dove.
The dove went; it came back,
For no perching place was visible to it , and it turned round.
I put out and released a swallow.
The swallow went; it came back,
For no perching place was visible to it , and it turned round.
I put out and released a raven.
The raven went, and saw the waters receding.
And it ate, preened (?), lifted its tail and did not turn round.
Then I put (everything?) out to the four winds, and I made a sacrifice.

[. . . ]

The gods smelt the pleasant fragrance,
The gods like flies gathered over the sacrifice.
[from tablet XI]

The Gilgamesh Epic is supposed to have originated in the early 3rd Millennium BCE—that's close to 1000 years before even Moses—who almost certainly did not write the Pentateuch—could have written it. It is interesting that if you read the supposed "J" source through the flood narrative in Genesis (viz. without the "P" source), the tone of the story closely resembles these other stories—which we naturally and rightly consider fictional myths. While it is laudable that men have such courage to climb tall mountains in search of Noah's big boat, I have to believe that they are wasting their time.

There are, of course, considerable implications to this approach—especially when you extend it through the Exodus narrative and into the New Testament. Certainly some of the biblical text is "historical" in the modern sense, but we have to consider the ramifications of denying the historical accuracy of the scriptures. This naturally begets the question "does Christian faith demand absolute historical accuracy? partial accuracy? accuracy in the 'essentials?'" Does it demand that we 'believe' things that are a-historical? Is faith believing in something that is irrational?

The problem is that we want the Bible to be "historical" but we don't want to subject it to "historical criticism." We say that it is a "faith-decision" to believe that the Bible is accurate—even if the supposed "accuracy" is according to a system that is deliberately skeptical viz. the scientific method. This is why I find it so aggravating that people get mad at groups like The Jesus Seminar. Christians want some kind of proof that Jesus was raised from the dead (or miracles et al.), but when the idea is set into a historical-critical framework, it fails. Why? Because when people die, they don't come back to life. Again, we have a faith-decision—the resurrection—that we want to be "historical" but we don't want to subject to a historical-critique.

This is, of course, to say nothing of "ontological reality." Rather, I speak to the insufficiency of the historical-critical method with regard to theological inquiry. "History," contrary to popular belief, is not about what really happened, History is about what probably happened or what we believe happened. This, in effect, puts the burden of "truth" on our shoulders, giving us the option to live-out whatever meta-narrative we choose. There is, necessarily, a willful suspension of belief (or "leap of faith," as Kierkegaard might say it) when we enter into a tradition or faith—it shapes the way we understand God, the world, other people, and how we all relate to one another.

So, is Christian Faith believing that something happened, or is it living in reaction to events that may not have "actually" occurred?

Some clarity.

2009-09-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

I thought I might write down a few thoughts that have been running through my head lately—some of the changes that have occurred in recent months and years with regard to my approach to the Bible. Let's start with the basics.

Inspiration can be a tough topic. The term floats around a lot, but I don't know that most people have spent much time considering why they believe that the Bible is so-called "inspired." The implications of "inspiration" seem to consume every sermon and self-help book that I have encountered in recent years, but the reasoning for biblical inspiration seems to be one of the most difficult doctrines that I have encountered.

First we have to decide what we mean by "inspired." I recall in my intro to theology class (now four years ago) my professor putting a "spectrum of inspiration" on the board. It looked something like this:

1. Verbal (dictation) inspiration:
God tells author what to write (inerrant)
2. Illuminating inspiration:
God moves author to write (inerrant, infallible)
3. Natural intuition inspiration:
Very spiritual author, maybe apostolic (infallible)
4. Inspiring:
The text inspires people

These, of course, by no means encompass every view—but it is easy to see at the top of the list Verbal inspiration (most conservative), and at the bottom, Inspiring (least conservative), and the others fall in between. Even as a freshman in Bible college I could see the futility of the first position—there is simply no rational way of defending the doctrine, it is entirely a faith position. The bottom definition also seemed to have significant problems—it removed the inherent authority of the text because it did not affirm that God (in whatever capacity) was the source of the text, but humans; God merely used the text that humans wrote to inspire others.

There are several texts in Scripture that support some kind of "direct intervention" sort of inspiration (i.e. not simply "inspirational"). The most often cited, of course, is 2 Tim. 3:16, which says, "All Scripture is inspired by God (θεόπνευστος, theopneustos lit. θεός + πνευστος, God + breathed, or some variation of that) and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" (NASB).

There are obvious problems with this passage. For instance, what does the author have in mind when he says "scripture?" Especially if one affirms Pauline authorship (which would place this quite early), we have no reason to believe that the author has in mind anything other than the Hebrew Bible, which even in the first century CE was in a state of flux (Cf. the collection of writings at Qumran).

The case is actually made better if we date 2 Tim to the 2nd century—at least then we know the author could be referring to the New Testament. It also should be noted that pasa (all) could also be rendered as "every"—suggesting a plurality of "scriptures" which are "God-breathed." This again brings us back to the issue of cannonicity.

Another problem with this passage is its ambiguity. There is considerable evidence to support some kind of "inspiration" language to be associated with theopneustos (though it is still quite vague), but the passage explicitly enumerates a few (again) ambiguous purposes for scripture, namely: teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. I would like to point out that omitted from this list are "Theories of Creation," "Cartography," and "Biological sciences." After all, if we believed what the Bible has to say about biology, we would believe that men planted seeds that sprouted inside women, who were either "fertile" or "infertile" like soil (we of course know that the "seeds" are actually inside the woman, and that the man is the one who is able to fertilize).

The most difficult part about this passage is the self-referential argument that the author (eligibly) is making. That is to say, the veracity of the author's argument is contingent upon the veracity of the author's argument. A person has to first affirm that scripture is "inspired" before the statement has any meaning. Which prompts two questions: 1) Supposing that a person already affirms the inspiration of scripture, why does he/she need scripture to remind them of this fact? and 2) Supposing a person doesn't affirm inspiration, what good does it do to argue in its favor from within that which we already know they don't affirm?

Another typical argument from scripture (for scripture; again let me re-iterate the silliness of that 'logic') comes from 2 Peter 1:20-21: "But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." Setting aside the self-referential argument, we have an interesting problem. This texts tells us that "no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation"—which is, of course, entirely impossible if we affirm the inherent inspiration of the text of scripture. While one might take the faith stance that an author was inspired directly by God, we cannot pretend to remove our own interpretive lens from the equation. On the contrary, we can affirm that God directly inspires us when we read scripture.

Over the last four years I have migrated considerably to the left of center where I started in my intro to theology class. The more I study the Bible, the more I see the fingerprints—not of God—but of men (and incidentally, not women). To affirm the inspiration (verbal= inerrant, infallible, etc.) of scripture based on its own claims should stand out to anyone who values reason as ill-conceived. As Christians, we certainly have the right to take "faith positions," but I argue that the inspiration (which is to say, verbal or illuminating = inerrant, infallible) should not be one of them. The authority of the scriptures is not inherent as a part of the text—instead it is the agreed-upon status of the scriptures given by and for the Church and the Synagogue.

A sola scriptura is a lonely and arrogant scriptura. The reformers were well-meaning, but wrong.

Spiritual autobiography

2009-09-16T20:51:00.001-07:00

Spiritual Autobiography

A new semester

2009-09-09T15:58:00.000-07:00

September 1st, 2009 marked the advent of my grad-school career. I have a lot to read, more hours at work, and more bills to pay. But I'm still excited and look forward to what this year has in store.

FRONTMATTER:
To start off, you may have noticed a slight change in appearance, since I doubt that I will have time to pursue any of my "open source" interests, I've decided to go with a theme a bit more conducive to biblical studies. Though, I assure you, should I find anything of merit to write about in the FLOSS community, I will let you know.

ANYHOW:
Much of my time thus-far has been dedicated to reading for class—specifically for Old Testament Introduction. The class is intriguing, the readings stretch me, Dr. Rollston is delightfully sarcastic and irreverent, and I feel like I am taking significant strides in my education yielding profound changes in how I think and understand the world around me.

I have also found a little bit of time to do some outside reading (somehow) which I have enjoyed immensely. Jodi Magness' The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls has thus-far been a very informative and accessible read for those of us not very familiar with Near Eastern archaeology and/or ancient sectarian Jewish groups. The most recent chapter that I read is titled "Communal Meals, a Toilet, and Sacred Space at Qumran." You might imagine that I was especially entertained by the section on "a toilet" at Qumran. Earlier in the book Magness comments that history writing in the ancient world was in large part for the purpose of entertainment. Often times historians would expound at great lengths upon things that were "strange" or "exotic." Magness uses the example of Josephus' account of the bathroom practices of the Essesnes—presumably because they were quite different from the common indiscretion of Greco-Romans—as an example. I started to think, "hmm, how quaint, history for entertainment." I was, however, rather surprised at the sophisticated methods that Magness described with which the Romans were able to dispose of waste. Magness writes:

Perhaps the best-known examples of ancient toilets are Roman luxury latrines, which were often part of a public bathhouse. They were equipped with wooden or stone seats pierced with holes which lined three sides of the room. The arrangement of side-by-side seats means that there was no privacy. The seats were mounted above a constantly running stream of water from the bathhouse, which carried off the sewage. A small gutter on the floor in front of the seats cleaned the spillage. It also carried water for washing the hands and dipping the sponges on sticks which the Romans used to clean themselves (instead of toilet paper).(106)

Perhaps historiography hasn't changed all that much after all.

Some things to try #2: VLC Player

2008-08-13T15:07:00.001-07:00

VLC Media Player is a great video player for just about every format and OS, including Windows, Mac OSX, BSD UNIX, Linux, BeOS, and some mobile devices. For the Apple user it is especially useful because of how it deals with AVI files — a Windows-native and somewhat clumsy format for those who do not have Windows. I struggled for quite a while to find a good AVI player for Mac OS — even though Quicktime "supports" AVI (it really doesn't) — and I finally stumbled upon VLC. I have almost zero latency when playing AVI files even despite OSX's dislike of the format.

The controls in full screen mode work wonderfully, though sometimes I have difficulty dragging the play-head to a specific point on the reel, but no more so than any other media player. It lacks the ability to follow scene breaks, so it doesn't make a very good DVD player, but it does play AVI, MPEG[1,2,3,4}, .mov, and most everything else. Overall, if you are wanting a good DVD player, Apple's DVD player is probably a better route to take, but if you don't have a DVD player, or want to watch just about any other media format, VLC is a great, free, and open alternative.

Some things to try #1: Quicksilver

2008-08-13T01:41:00.000-07:00

Over the past several years, I have scoured the internet for Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS). Most of the free software on the web is written originally for Linux/UNIX and ported for MacOS and/or Windows, so some of the software will not be readily available to some of you, though I plan to list some alternatives for those who are stuck with one OS.

I wanted to make sure that I made this blog useful before I took the liberty of unloading all the deep and profound things that I have to say on all [both] of you reading.

On the right is [should be] a column with several of my favorite places on the web. No, you won't find clever blogs and band websites, but hopefully you can find some useful free software that will make you life easier and/or more productive (as they have for me). Below are a few brief descriptions of several of the better ones that I have stumbled upon.

Quicksilver is a great app that allows the user to use a quick keystroke and the keyboard to launch applications. For instance, if I wanted to open my Firefox browser I would hit option_tab then type firefox (or fire, fir, fi, etc., depending on what other applications existed on the system)

You can even set shortcut keys for the specific apps. For instance, even though I have, say, a game called "Terminator" and an app called "Terminal," because I access the app "terminal" far more frequently, Quicksilver picks up on that fact, and will place "Terminal" above "Terminator." There are nearly limitless possibilities for this software — I know it seems a bit novel — but once you get used to not having to take you hands off the keyboard, it makes it very frustrating using other computers without it! Unfortunately, it is only available for Mac OS, though Windows users can try several alternatives (see here), and those noble Linux/UNIX hackers out there can try Katapult (KDE), or GNOME + DO (GNOME). Although Quicksilver seems to be the most developed and stable release, there are a lot of people out there who have taken very kindly to application launchers, so we should expect to see some good progress in coming months and years.

Open Source

2008-08-07T18:27:00.000-07:00

In recent years I have become increasingly aware of my nerdy/geeky tendencies. As it turns out, many of the things in life that my peers find boring or dull, I find. . . amusing — or more probably intriguing.

I feel compelled first of all to explain the title of this blog: sudo THINK. First, the title should not be thought of as sudo [sic.] THINK, or pseudo THINK, as both of these titles would make me look like one of those people who desperately think they have new and important thoughts, but want people to think that they are creative and different. No, no, no, this title is far more nerdy and repulsively computer-oriented.

Those of you out there who are familiar with UNIX/Linux command line syntax will recognize that the sudo command temporarily gives a regular user the permissions of "super" or "root" user. In practical usage, when a user tries to execute a command that he/she does not have permission for, the sudo command effectively acts as an imperative (see below).

That being said, I want to make it clear that I have no intention of making this blog at all "relevant," "cool," or in anyway marketable to any normal audience. More than anything this is meant to be a personal outlet for some of the nerdiness that normal society has deemed "superfluous" to modern American life. On the other hand, I understand that this is a public forum which can be easily viewed by all, and therefor have no intention of slitting my [metaphorical] wrists so that anyone with an Internet connection can watch me slip into unconsciousness at the bottom of a bathtub — I am hardly that interesting.

So without further ado, let the blogging commence.