/* Unless you know something about C and/or the Bible, read this post at your own risk; */
printf(“In modern computer programming, two types of subroutines are commonly used — procedures and functions. The difference between the two is that functions always return a value to the caller — just like a function in mathematics — and procedures never do. Students of the C language quickly learn that C does not have procedures. C only has functions. We should require more research to find out whether the designers wanted to nudge the programmer towards always returning values from subroutines or give the programmer a better feel of what the compiled language looked like. The latter is often the case in C, so we will make that our guess.”);
printf(“Regardless, C does allow the programmer to imitate a procedure call with a function that returns ”void.” Those in our audience with Bible on the brain will instantly remember Isaiah 55:11, ”So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” This raises three questions in our minds: %d. Is it possible that the C designers had this Scripture in mind when they wrote their specification? %d. If a new C variant were created — call it Biblical C — would all functions be required to returned a value and not void? %d. Why didn’t we think of this before?”, 1, 2, 3);
return true;
}
/* I guess that makes me a weirdo even more than using vi in Windows does. */
Your quotation of the day is a paradox from C. S. Lewis: “It is the stupidest children who are the most childish and the stupidest grown-ups who are the most grown-up.”
During a conversation that was nice, but not interesting enough to share here, the fellows and I concluded something interesting. We declared; the four food groups shall henceforth be known as “Wheats, Meats, Teats, and Beets.” Why can’t the FDA come up with mnemonic devices like that?
Folks, it is time for your annual reminder. ‘Tis the season for felicitations. We have previously discussed the whatfors, wherefores, and why-nots (you can find them in Decembers past on this web site), so this year, you just get the reminder and a story. Last Christmas-time, I actually had someone ask me “What about folks who don’t celebrate Christmas?” As it almost never happens, I was prepared for that question by a recent discussion. I simply said, “Well, Jesus is for everyone.” He said, “Good answer.” So, splash around a few “Merry Christmases” this year and when you have the chance, remind someone why Jesus came in the flesh.
Consider this. About half of the covers of What Child Is This? that I have heard within the last five years have changed “ox and ass” to “ox and lamb.” What would William Chatterton Dix think of this? We shall never know; but in my humble and sometimes wrong opinion, it is presumptuous to arbitrarily alter a word in a 150-year-old song for fear of offending someone with the word ass. I will grant that different hymnals often have different versions of songs. In fact, Wikipedia lists variations on nine lines of What Child is This? based on five hymnals. It is interesting, though, that none of those alternatives includes “ox and lamb.”
Here’s the nub. As an erstwhile songwriter, I can’t hear that song anymore without listening closely to that line to see what the performer has chosen to do. I can say with certainty that any good songwriter (and Mr. Dix was one) would not arbitrarily pick “ox and ass.” He picked those words because those were the ones he wanted in the song and we may reasonably assume that he thought about using lamb somewhere in that song. Mr. Dix knew that lambs are found in a fold, while oxen and asses are found in a stable, where the Son of God was born.
You may say that the presence of shepherds in verse one justifies the reference to a lamb in verse 2. This is a good argument, but I would counter: First, the songwriter indicates that these two are feeding; if a lamb did follow his shepherd to the stable, it would not be his normal environment for feeding (I’ll submit my judgment there to anyone who knows more about sheep than I do). Second, and most importantly, changing a super-classic song out of fear is simply a bad idea.
We attended our son’s “Holiday Concert” the other night and an introduction by the SNL Al Roker may have been in order, “So in the spirit of diversity and fear, please welcome the [Eagles 2nd Grade Singers] with and all-inclusive Holiday medley for everyone.” The scholars sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas wherein the words were changed to “We wish you a swingin’ holiday…” and “good tidings of a merry holiday and a happy new year.” Could it be more obvious that there’s a songwriter somewhere that feels guilty that there’s a poor schmoe in an audience somewhere who does not celebrate Christmas and feels left out?
Interestingly, they also sang a traditional arrangement of O Come All Ye Faithful. So the school was not afraid of Christmas songs, but perhaps afraid of too many Christmas songs. Anyway, since the vapidity, the vacuity, and the vanity of these revisions are blatant, I’ll leave the explanation and execration up to those with more time for that. Just remember that, even though not everyone celebrates the birth of our Lord, Jesus is for everyone.
CP and I had an evening without the boys and had not planned anything specific so we decided to do some “window shopping” and wound up playing Rock Band for a half hour at Best Buy, just the two of us. Now that’s a high quality cheap date!
Someone pointed me to this far out video produced 40 years ago by the FAA called General Aviation: Fact or Fiction? You totally want to watch it. My friends who are plane nuts will be intrigued by all fifteen minutes, but even if you aren’t a nut, you won’t be sorry you watched the first five minutes, just for fun.
The narrator closes the film by saying “No matter whether you are the most experienced pilot, or the least, you are needed to help dispel the public myths that undermine general aviation’s continued growth, and to help separate the fact from the fiction.” It is interesting that the same message needs to be heard again today because the myths are being renewed, we might say this time more maliciously. The second video below comes from the recent GA Serves America campaign to remind the general public that general aviation is a revenue producer and good for a community. You can go to the GA Serves America site for more videos, featuring Morgan Freeman and others.
