All the nonsense that follows below is basically trying to say that we now have a “chatroom” on the blog. That little thing on the right that says “scream it” gets updated every two seconds without the page refreshing. If it doesn’t work for you, try clearing your cache.

My morning conversation this morning with a mid-level manager of a multi-national accounting firm:

me: So, do you enjoy doing audits?
him: Yes. Well … there is two types of audits …
me: there are
him: yes, sorry, there are two kinds of audits: internal and external. External audits are very … how do you say? … lazy?
me: boring?
him: yes, very boring. But internal audits I like very much. You must use your head very much. But very, very much. And it gives me much satisfaction …
me: a lot of satisfaction
him: ok, it gives me a lot of satisfaction when I save a company 10,000 or maybe 20,000 dollars. Or when I … how do you say? … hide? … a fraud?
me: um, cover up?
him (old boys club laughter): yes, cover up a fraud

I’m reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis right now and homeboy brings up some good points. My knee-jerk diplomatic reaction when somone asks me if I’m Catholic is no, but I do believe in much of Jesus’ teachings. As Lewis points out though:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher; but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.

And it’s kinda true huh? If dude says he’s the son of god, he’s either the son of god or he’s a crazy.

Anyway, I have a difficult time talking about Christianity with others because the conversation almost always boils down to, “it’s a faith you feel, not think about.” Which is fine; I’m just not feeling it. But if you’re looking for a rational argument defending Christianity, this book is the place to find it. Like Harper’s (watta ya know, their feature this month just happens to be about Jesus’ defenders) says:

The point about reading C.S. Lewis is that he makes you sure, whatever you believe, that religion accepted or rejected means something extremely serious, demanding the entire energy of the mind.

OK, maybe that’s overdoing it, but yeah, whether you’re Christian or not, the book’s gonna make you think. Which is why it’s taking me so damn long to read.

What is AJAX? My girlfriend thinks it’s insect repellent. We’ve had an ant problem lately in the house and she seems determined that pouring AJAX all over the house will solve it. So far, the hypothesis seems to be overwhelmingly proven false, but don’t think she’ll let that get get in her way. Just the other morning a fresh layer of AJAX was applied to the floors.

According to computer geeks though, AJAX means something entirely different. Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is a clever acronym for a combination of codes which is supposed to make the inkernet a lot prettier.

If you take a wrong turn and fall into geekland on the internet like I do occassionally (being far too macho to ever ask for directions) you can’t help but run into the term Internet OS – or sometimes, (maybe) jokingly, Google OS.

The general idea is that an operating system is a platform on which we run applications. Windows XP, for example, is my platform and Picasa 2 is my photo organizing application. Or it was. Now Flickr Organizr is my photo organizing application and it runs on a platform called … well, the internet.

The desktop operating system uses microsoft word for text editing; the internet OS uses email, blogs, and wikis. The desktop OS uses a program called Calculator in your accessories folder. The internet OS has it’s own version. Essentially, anything you wanted to do on your desktop OS could also be done on the Internet OS – even editing movies.

But what seems to be very obvious so far is that applications which sit in your browser are not nearly as cool looking or easy to use as applications on your desktop OS. It’s kinda like we’re stuck in Windows 3.1 on the internet. If you put a 6-year-old kid (or el moreno for that matter) in front of microsoft word and in front of the admin section of WordPress, he’s gonn figure out the former a hell of a lot quicker than the latter.

Which is where AJAX, the ant killer, comes in. Using a combination of rules in the web page that get sent to your browser and by continuously communicating with the server in the background, what you see is constantly getting updated without you having to refresh the page. So it’s much more like an application than just a web page.

Y’all see where I”m getting at right? El Oso, El Moreno, and El Dude Who Doesn’t Write Anything now has a chat room. Well, essentially. That little box over there that says scream it uses AJAX to update constantly without refreshing the page. So if you happen to be hanging around and you see someone else online that you want to shout at, well, have a shout and as long as they’re paying attention, they’re sure to see it. It even makes a little flash to get they’re attention. Cute, I know.