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Prince of Peace

Prince of Peace

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Akiane Kramarik is a self-taught painter and says that Jesus spoke to her when she was four years old, encouraging her to draw and paint what she experienced.

At age eight, after seeking the right face to help her paint an image from her dreams and visions, a family friend brought to her a carpenter as a possible subject. The man’s face closely resembled what Kramarik remembered as the face of Jesus. She completed the portrait in 40 hours of intensive work.

Not long after, it was shipped to her agent for exhibition, who then stole it and sold it without permission. For sixteen years the original painting was held locked in a bank vault, with the then-owner unwilling either to show or to sell it. In December 2019, Prince of Peace was recovered by the artist’s family and sold to a private collector for $850,000. After twenty years, the original is available for public viewing at Beloved Gallery in Marble Falls, Texas. 

At the age of four, Colton Burpo, whose story was featured in the best-selling book Heaven Is for Real and the film adaptation of the same name, underwent a critical operation after his appendix burst. Although it was not a near-death experience (his heart never stopped), he did say he had an experience of visiting Heaven and had visions of Jesus. Years later, when he saw Kramarik’s Prince of Peace on TV, he told his father “Dad, that one’s right.”

Akiane Kramarik has a gallery and the copies of the picture are for sale.

Fulton Sheen – Good Friday homily

Fulton Sheen – Good Friday homily

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A great reflection on spectators to the crucifixion. We today are witnesses to the crucifixion – which kind are we? Are we part of the mocking crowd? Part of the indifferent crowd? Those that love Jesus?

When He comes, He will have not wounds, but scars. Scars on hand and feet and side. And that is how He will judge us. Show me your hands. Have you a scar of giving? Of sacrificing yourself for another? Show me your feet. Are you going about doing good? Were you wounded in service? Show me your heart. Have you left a place for divine love?
And that is how He will know His own.

Links

Arsenal camera assistant

Arsenal camera assistant

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The Arsenal device attaches to your camera and provides a number of previously more manual operations. It’s supposed to automate photo stacking, long exposures, focus stacking, timelapse, removes moving elements (people/cars/etc), color enhancing, and other features using advanced intelligence and AI.

I got captured by their ad because almost everything was filmed here in Oregon and boy is it slick looking:

Is it any good? I wondered if they were able to put the smarts of a good photographer into a device. Well…the British aren’t one for candy coating things:

So, it’s another great reminder that you should take the fabulous promises in a slick video and a smash Kickstarter with a grain of salt.

Cult of Done

Cult of Done

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The ‘Cult of Done‘ movement went through the maker and entrepreneurial worlds after it was written in 2009. These ideas are not new, but like all things mid-2000’s, everyone was tripping all over themselves to make themselves seem like an thought leader with (oft times comically ego-driven) exercises like defining disruption theory.

A few reflective notes:

  1. “Doing something makes you right”
    This is dangerously simplistic to to the point of me saying this is wrong. I know that people say ‘right’ as in ‘it works in the marketplace’, and people that do things definitely change the world compared to armchair critics.
    But the word ‘right’ carries moral connotation that is confused in today’s relativistic world. Action is better than inaction. The other points in the video about procrastination and awaiting perfection (from the book Art & Fear – discussion) are perfectly correct and great observations. But nobody would agree that Hitler ‘doing something’ about the state Germany after WW1 made him right. Just ‘doing something’ by inventing social media has turned out to have far-reaching negative impacts on society, mental health, and many of it’s founders now actively work against what they have made and claimed it was their biggest mistakes.
    This kind of thinking is the ethical equivalent of ‘might makes right‘. Yes, we should be highly motivated to action and being first to the marketplace often defines the winners. It’s clear doing nothing changes nothing. But all you can really saying is that ‘doing something creates a thing than isn’t here today’. But doing something/action, in itself, does not make you morally ‘right’.
  2. When you release something into the world – you’ve lost control of it. Accept this.
    This is true – which is why it’s a very good idea to think out what you’re doing before unleashing it on others. I have had a number of ideas that would likely be successful in the market, but absolutely terrible for society. Others have created social media monsters and it’s created some of the worst parts of the society we live in today (lack of dialog, lack of respect for others’ opinions, justifying violence).
    This is also a warning about coder meetups and contests. Once you show or work on an idea in public, or work on it with others without an NDA or protections, it’s public domain. The race is on to get it done first if you already lost your public disclosure protection. It’s a good idea to patent or copyright anything that could potentially be really amazing.
  3. Fake it until you make it – What this is supposed to do is help encourage you that you’re good enough to figure something out. However, there is a difference between faking knowledge and giving yourself the confidence to learn while doing.
    For a couple hundred years, scientists called this the ‘scientific method‘. It starts, however, when you first admit you do not know something. You make some assertions and then try to prove them out with intellectual honesty, and transparency of learning while running repeatable experiments. That’s different than someone that pretends and asserts they do know how to do something. The recent 30 under 30 scandals, the Fyre Festival, and FTX’s implosion are all great examples of when people faked it and did NOT make it (well, they made it into federal prison). Start by admitting you don’t know what you’re doing and then use healthy skepticism until you prove the idea out. You start from a position of confident humility. That’s worked in science for hundreds of years.
Admitting your mistakes

Admitting your mistakes

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Speaking at QCon back in 2009, Tony Hoare admitted to probably one of the biggest mistakes of his career – one that every programmer knows all too well. The invention of NULL because ‘it was so easy to implement’.

I call it my billion-dollar mistake. It was the invention of the null reference in 1965.

At that time, I was designing the first comprehensive type system for references in an object oriented language (ALGOL W). My goal was to ensure that all use of references should be absolutely safe, with checking performed automatically by the compiler. But I couldn’t resist the temptation to put in a null reference, simply because it was so easy to implement. This has led to innumerable errors, vulnerabilities, and system crashes, which have probably caused a billion dollars of pain and damage in the last forty years.

Yanko Designs turntable

Yanko Designs turntable

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Yanko Designs reports that Miniot has decided to re-invent the record player. Miniot calls it simply Wheel. It features a neat upright design and plays records from the back. One of the most unique elements is the barely visible tactile control system that lets you press and push parts of the hidden wheel to jump tracks, change volume, and even set the stylus weight.

The Miniot site shows it runs $2187 – $4156 depending on the options and color you select.