Uncouth PerspectivesNot on the rug, man.

Warning:  Geek Ahead

I recenty had a problem with my Apple HD and I didn’t find anything good online, so I am going to post what I did here so anyone else trolling the search engines might get some help.

Scenario:

I don’t reboot my laptop often, but I noticed that it’s running a little sluggish, so I decided maybe it’s time to give it a good restart.  I am, of course, looking over some of my notes for the two presentations I am giving in a couple of days as it does this.  As the computer starts back up, I turn away.  When I look back, it is turned off.  Odd, but my laptop has some quirks, so I give it a go again.  This time I watch.  Yup, it starts to boot and then just turns off.  Weeeeeird.

I get my handy boot/install disk and check the system log, where I see messsages like this..

kernel[0]: HFS: Runtime corruption detected on HD, fsck will be forced on next mount.
kernel[0]: hfs_swap_BTNode: invalid forward link (0xb6baad6e >= 0x0000a280)
kernel[0]: node=33456 fileID=4 volume=HD device=/dev/disk0s2

Bad juju, but hopefully not a big deal.  I pull up Disk Utility and I get this lovely message.

Invalid record count
Volume check failed
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit

1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be validated or repaired because of an error.

Blah.

So I play the “I’ll look away and then it will do it” game for a while, but I can’t make it work.  I go back to the command line and use the checking tool myself.

fsck_hfs -d /dev/disk0s2

Same result. Thanks.  I, of course, run this a couple more times, ’cause, yeah, you never know.  Hah.

I do some research online and find very little.  I’m looking at some of the fancier tools and then realize I haven’t tried all of the options with fsck_hsf.  I notice it always fails at the catalog check

fsck_hfs -dr /dev/disk0s2

Ahha!  -r rebuilds the catalog.  It runs through about four checks over about 10-15 minutes, but comes out saying it’s clean.  I run one more check just to be safe, but it doesn’t detect any problems.  Cross my fingers and reboot and, viola, it works.

This probably means my disk is toast or going to be toast soon, but I’ve been monitoring the log and so far no errors, so we’ll just have to see.  I have my system backed up, so it wouldn’t/won’t be tragic to replace the drive, but it’s work I don’t really want to do if I don’t need to.

I hope this helps someone–fun with disk problems!

One of the cornerstones of almost every Christian denomination is the resurrection of body or spirit.  This is almost always based in resurrection of Jesus Christ after three days.  This story is particular powerful because it is a demonstration of God’s power over death and is a complete, amazing, and satisfying answer to question of mortality–one of the most powerful questions which draw people to religion.

I have to admit that I am not a master in the theory or theology of the resurrection, so I write this post with a little trepidation and the disclaimer to do your own research if this gets you thinking.

This post is inspired by the recent discovery of a tablet which talks about the resurrection of a messiah after three days which has, I am to understand, been reasonably dated to before the time of the birth of Christ.  This tablet has apparently created an amazing about of debate and sparked some pretty hefty arguments.

What’s the big deal you might ask?  Much to my surprise, there are Christian apologists who apparently have an argument which suggests that one of the things which makes the resurrection of Christ story so compelling is that there are no other stories about a three day resurrection–that is to say, it is unique.  In scholarship, this is an extremely important point and, even though I was unaware people were making this argument, it is a very good argument to make–if there is no tradition to build on, why three days?  This seems like a rather strange thing for someone to make up, so it makes a lot of academic sense (with the appropriate level of pontification and long-winded arguments) that it likely had to happen.

Except that I do not think it is true.  I think there are a lot of examples in prior traditions.  It is no secret that the resurrection story itself is not unique.  The most obvious–and hotly contested–which comes to mind is Mithra.  I am not going to go into all of the (supposed) parallels of Mithra and Christ, but one of the important ones is that Mithra died and resurrected.  Some even claim that he rose three days later, but I do not have any support for this (anyone?).  I do also feel obliged to say that I think these two figures/traditions are so intermingled, it may be hard to ever understand how each influenced the other.

Anyways, the point at hand is that the resurrection story is not unique.  Mythical heroes have been getting resurrected in some way since there were myths to be told.  But what about the three days?  This is just not true.  There are resurrection stories in Egyptian mythology and the most prominent to the point is the story of Horus, who died and was resurrected three days later.  Another story is that of Attis, a story from Greek mythology, who was raised to life three days after being driven mad by a goddess who loved him and killing himself.  I am not making the broad comparison with these stories that others would–I am not saying that they are Christ-like stories or that Christianity stole them.  What I am doing, however, is pointing out that there is already evidence for other three-day resurrection stories.

A point I am even less knowledgeable in, but think should at least be brought up, is the potential significance of the number three.  In my limited knowledge, I have heard the number three used to suggest small numbers or a short time.  Keep in mind that in antiquity numbers were not always used as definite in story and myth.  For example, it has been suggested that the number of 144,000 people who will be saved was not meant to be taken literally, but it is such a big number that it is supposed to represent infinity.  That and something about the importance of twelve.  So the theory is that three days is not a literal three days, but simply “a short time.”  But, again, this is not really an area I know much about, however I wanted to bring it up because it might be relevant, but I admit it is pure conjecture on my part.

I guess I am rather dismayed over the hoopla around this tablet.  I think it is a very neat discovery and the more things we find like this, the better we can understand the people of that time–so it is not the discovery or the tablet itsel which I am bothered by, but it is the big deal around the three day resurrection of Christ being unique.  Sure, it makes a great academic argument, but I think it is simply a wrong argument.  The tablet is interesting and unique in that it potentially demonstrates the idea of a three day resurrection in Jewish thinking at the time (do not forget that apocalyptic stories were a dime a dozen back then and the coming of the Messiah was highly anticipated, especially under the heavy persecution over hundreds of years–for example, some thought the Persian king Cryus was the Messiah because he ended the Babylonian Diaspora), but I do not think this discovery changes anything–unless, of course, one has put faith only in the story of three day resurrection being historically unique.

I know you are oozing with jealousy, but that blur just to the left of the blur that is my face is the senior senator from Utah.  This snapshot was taken at a taping of The Music and The Spoken Word where somehow I ended up about six seats and a small aisle away from the senator.  This, I have to say, is the extent of my physical exposure.

However, there is slightly more to the story.  As we drove into Salt Lake City last weekend, something sparked a chain of thoughts that ended with “You know, I hate Orrin Hatch.”

The response: “Why?”

The witty return: “Uhh.. I.. uh.. I.. don’t know.  I.. uh.. think he did something I didn’t like.”

I sat for a few moments and I couldn’t think of one single reason.  This smacked of ill-formed, ignorant opinions and generic biased thinking, so I started to do some research.  To be honest, I have not put a big amount of research into the senator, but I did a little research to try to understand who he is a little better.

So I found what he did that made me feel some kind of dislike for him:  his staunch view on copyright laws.  Now, for the record, I am not a zealot about copyright law.  I do think the system is broken, but I don’t really know why–and, really, I have not put a lot of time to study it.  But what I know is that I believe people should be paid for their work–and really, it is up to the individual artist to decide this.  If they want to give it away, great.  If they want to charge you ten cents for every second the music is played, great.  I won’t spend money on the latter and the artist probably won’t make any money.

Orrin Hatch aggitated a lot of people (let’s call them The Internet) because he sided strongly with big music and movie companies in the debate surrounding filesharing, which of course still rages strong today.  I couldn’t tell you what they are anymore, but the things I read about what he was doing certainly made me angry.  But, uhm, I don’t remember what they were.  Should I still be angry?  Hey!  It turns out I’m not angry anymore, just biased, thought I find myself using such a strong word like hate.  I don’t really approve of that, it turns out.

And, lo and behold, the man is a musician in his own right and has several music copyrights and has actually made some money from the business.  I remember people clammoring about how he was in the pocket of the RIAA/etc and that may even be true, but I think it’s not a small detail that he has a personal interest in the process.  Now, many people would stand up and shout about conflict of interest and such, but I think I’d have to disagree.  We need people with passion and vested interest to be in government service.  That’s part of what this country is built on:  it’s supposed to be regular people in government.  Now that’s totally not how it works and I’m not even trying to suggest that someone like Orrin Hatch is a “regular person”… clearly he’s spent his life in government and he plays the game, but I can’t support an argument which would tie his personal interests and pursuits to a conflict of interest with his legislative aims.  That doesn’t mean, though, that I agree anymore with his strong stance.

Okay, so now I feel sheepish for really uncovering my own failing and I find myself feeling much more neutral about the senator.  What is there to learn?  He sponsered the “Hatch-Waxman” act.  What’s this?  From the unverisal fountain of truth that is wikipedia, it is apparently the law which made our modern system of generic drugs.  Now, again, our drug and health care system is completely out of whack–that is to say almost broken beyond repair–but I don’t know anyone who does not appreciate generic drugs.  And, in fact, I find it pretty amazingly how quickly generic drugs can make it to the market and so I find this in potential conflict with the efforts he has made with copyright reform.  But, then again, I hardly know anything about the generics and pharmaceuticals, so I could be totally and completely wrong.

It also turns out that, and I did some research on this one after reading it wikipedia, he’s a supporter of stem cell research!  That’s pretty awesome.  He is pro-life, yet pro-stem cell research.  That’s refreshing.  For the record:  I am 100% in favor of stem cell research.

So what did I learn about Orrin Hatch?  Not much, really.  I learned there are some things I like and some things I dislike.  That’s really true with most people.  If I looked closer at the issues and his positions, I’m sure I’d feel much stronger about my view of him as a legislator, but the truth be told, this wasn’t about Orrin Hatch.  It was about myself and my own biases.  I learned more about the fact that I took a few headlines and turned them into disdain for someone which I never even bothered to research.  That’s not cool.  It’s that kind of attitude which makes bickering, fighting, and war.  People don’t taken enough to learn about the people they are dealing with or the reasons those people do what they do–and that ignorance is used as a foundation to build hate and further misunderstanding.