Things Do Change

This Winter


Today

The NIV is in for some Revisions

For many years, my denomination has trusted the New International Version (affectionately called the NIV) as its English translation of choice for study and teaching. It has been felt that this translation was among the best in terms of balancing scholarly accuracy and readability for the layman. I have read the NIV extensively, quizzed on it, and taught from it.

And now, it appears the publisher wants to redo it. After a failed attempt to update the NIV with gender-neutral language which was released as the TNIV (Today's New International Version), the publishers claim they have learned from their mistakes but still want to update the translation to be accessible to modern readers.

We shall see. I think the publishers underestimate the conservative nature of the evangelical community.

Time for the Megapixel Wars to End?

I have owned a large number of digital cameras, all the way from when 640 x 480 was state of the art to a new 12 megapixel Canon camera that I picked up to shoot a wedding in the Spring. And something has become obvious as megapixels have multiplied like rabbits - the number of megapixels in a camera has very little to do with the quality of pictures you get. It is not just that we've exceeded the human eye, but rather that after a point the expanding number of megapixels simply shows up the flaws in the lens. Consumer Reports has noticed the same thing and is finally calling for an end to the magapixel race.

The problem isn't the sensor. It's the glass. Writer Ray Maxwell points out that lenses will at some point reach a limit and that simply adding more pixels to a sensor will not result in more detail or better images. So, while and laptop and desktop computers may continue to follow Moore's Law, cameras with glass lenses will not. And that limitation is why the writer ends the article with "If someone produces a 35mm full frame camera with 100 Megapixels, beware. Given the limitations of the wavelength of light, no lens can live up to that resolution."

We're already seeing this transformation in the computer industry, which used to focus on CPU speed. Now, they are shifting to multiple threads, power efficiency, and other measures of excellence.

Democratic House to Repeal Openness Rules

President-Elect Barack Obama has made much about "change" and bringing in a new era of open government. But it appears that the Democratic majority is on a different page, and are planning on repealing a number of reforms brought on with the Republican Contract with America.

Reforms to the House Rules as part of the Contract with America were designed to open up to public scrutiny what had become under this decades-long Democrat majority a dangerously secretive House legislative process. The Republican reform of the way the House did business included opening committee meetings to the public and media, making Congress actually subject to federal law, term limits for committee chairmen ending decades-long committee fiefdoms, truth in budgeting, elimination of the committee proxy vote, authorization of a House audit, specific requirements for blanket rules waivers, and guarantees to the then-Democrat minority party to offer amendments to pieces of legislation.

I hope this is a misunderstanding, and Chairperson Pelosi has no such plans. But majorities tend toward corruption. Then again, maybe it is the opening the GOP needs to reunify itself for a comeback in 2010.