David Westerfield

Gospel. Culture. Technology. Music.

Month: December 2015


The Gamification of Consent

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On December 22, 2015

In Technology

Gamification

In what is one of the more frightening uses of cloud computing, big data, data science, and data analysis, China has been working on what can only be described as the gamification of consent (a twist on the title of Edward Bernay’s book The Engineering of Consent). Via a new social media scoring system that rates your submission to the party line (though currently only running in numerous pilotprojects), the communist government will give incentive rewards for “appropriate” behavior in the light thereof, and take those rewards away for a dissenting score. This has huge implications as it relates to the study of mass psychology and the use by governments of tools like this to manipulate and coerce their populations into submission.

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Clement on the Necessity of Community for Believers

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On December 19, 2015

In Church History, Theology

“The great cannot subsist without the small, nor the small without the great. There is a kind of mixture in all things, and thence arises mutual advantage. Let us take our body for an example. The head is nothing without the feet, and the feet are nothing without the head; yea, the very smallest members of our body are necessary and useful to the whole body. But all work harmoniously together, and are under one common rule for the preservation of the whole body.”

Clement to the Corinithans

How to Disappear Completely – Radiohead

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On December 14, 2015

In Music

This song was a close companion during the times of grieving after my mother passed away in June of 2001. It’s very sad, maybe even a little nihilistic, but during my time of grieving it really struck a chord and connected with exactly where I was. I didn’t stay there, and fell into the arms of Christ for comfort, but this song very much resonated. In many ways, it helped me cope and deal with the hole left by her departure because it forced me to grieve and turn then to the Lord.

Coventry Carol

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On December 14, 2015

In Music

Growing up, during Christmas time, my parents would check out medieval Christmas vinyl’s from the local library and there was one particular carol that had such a striking tune and I couldn’t remember or figure out what it was until a few years ago. I guess it may just be nostalgia, but it’s one of my favorite tunes during Christmas. Enjoy …

Icahn’s Concerns for the Economy at Large

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On December 11, 2015

In Economics

This is an excerpt from Zerohedge: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-11/carl-icahn-warns-meltdown-high-yield-just-beginning

Over the course of 15 minutes, Icahn lays out his concerns about many of the issues we’ve been warning about for years and while none of what he says will come as a surprise (especially to those who frequent these pages), the video, called “Danger Ahead”, is probably worth your time as it does a fairly good job of summarizing how the various risk factors work to reinforce one another on the way to setting the stage for a meltdown. Here’s a list of Icahn’s concerns:

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Creating SharePoint 2013 Enterprise Search with PowerShell

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On December 11, 2015

In Technology

powershellIn an effort to setup Enterprise Search in SharePoint 2013 using PowerShell to make sure every nook and cranny was covered, I came across a number of scripts, but none seemed to do as good of a job as this one. I’m not sure what the original source is or who put it together, but it worked flawlessly. This is probably by far the best PowerShell script I have found for setting up Enterprise Search that does a good job of setting up every component. Enjoy!




Before running, create a folder on a hard drive of your choosing where indexes will be stored. In this case, I used “C:\SPSearchIndexes” for the Index location. This has to be created beforehand, otherwise it will fail!

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Worse Than Famine and Drought

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On December 9, 2015

In Theology

Something worse than famine and drought (from today’s Advent readings in the Book of Common Prayer Lectionary):

 [11] “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD.
[12] They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD,
but they shall not find it.

Amos 8:11-12 ESV

Incarnational Eschatology

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On December 5, 2015

In Theology

There is a grand interconnection between the incarnation of Christ and his second coming. Graeme Goldsworthy gives a great summing up of the relation of the incarnation to eschatology or last things, when Christ returns in glory and brings to completion and finality all he has accomplished (inserts mine, to give context to the quote).

The structure of New Testament eschatology requires that we at least consider that [Christ’s return] is both fulfilled now in the incarnation and awaiting its consummation at Christ’s [second] return. That is, what happened in Jesus’ first advent as fulfiller of all God’s promises is the paradigm of what will happen at his parousia. Everything was fulfulled in him representatively at his first coming, and everything will be fulfilled in a universal consummation at his return.

Graeme Goldsworthy, Christ-Centered Biblical Theology, pgs. 184-185

A Present and Future Hope

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On December 2, 2015

In Theology

If you ever had any hope of trying to please God with your good, moral behavior, put that notion to rest. Psalm 14:2-3 should lay you flat.

2The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
to see if there are any who understand,a
who seek after God.

3They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.

How then will you be able to stand in the last day, when God judges the thoughts and intentions of the hearts of all, when all must give an account? Especially in light of the passage above, that there are none righteous?

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