Galatians 2:11-14 NRSV;CEB – Paul Rebukes Peter at Antioch

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+2%3A11-14&version=NRSV;CEB

I’ve always gotten a kick out of this passage, for some reason. Disagreement in the church goes WAAAY back. Plus Paul: ain’t afraid to get in somebody’s face.

«But when Cephas [Peter[1]] came to Antioch, I [Paul] opposed him to his face, because he was wrong. He had been eating with the Gentiles before certain people came from James. But when they came, he began to back out and separate himself, because he was afraid of the people who promoted circumcision. And the rest of the Jews[2] also joined him in this hypocrisy so that even Barnabas got carried away with them in their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they weren’t acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of everyone, “If you, though you’re a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you require the Gentiles to live like Jews?”»

(Quick side note, for those who don’t know (like me, a few years ago): Paul was kind of a super-villain, a super-pharisee (if you will[3]) who killed a lot of Christians before he decided to take a road trip to Damascus:

«Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.»

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%209%3A1-2&version=NRSV;CEB

Guess who wound up changing his name?)

So, notes:

[1] “Cephas” was Peter’s name in Aramaic, the language most commonly spoken in ancient Israel at that time. “Peter” is Greek. They both mean “stone” (and they both refer to the same person).

[2] “Jews” is “Christians who used to be Jews”. Everyone in Israel starts this story out Jewish. Jewishness was the water they swam in; the context.

[3] I use that word “pharisee” advisedly; it’s tricky, since SOME people who call(ed) themselves “Christians” accuse Jews of being “Christ-killers” (Hitler and the German Nazis, for instance.) However, Saul/Paul studied at the feet of Gamaliel, one of the great Jewish teachers of the time, and he turns out to be quite the theological ninja (Acts 23:6-10, *snerk*), so I think “pharisee” might be fair.

The Thiel question

“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”

Hashmaps are O(1). The number of people who don’t know this is astonishing.

Function documentation should include pre- and postconditions and invariants (since actual Design by Contract can be problematic due to side effects in call trees). I guess if you’re going to do real DBC, you should only access primitive data members without making function calls.

Logic does not belong in the database.

Caching is good. (Maybe these last two are indications that I’m not working at the right company.)

Developer documentation is worth the effort.

Slack (and MS Teams) is terrible. See above. Curation is worth the effort.

Long ‘switch’ statements are bad. Dispatch lookup tables are (probably) better.

Judge rules baby Tinslee Lewis can be taken off life support | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/fort-worth/article238902013.html

«“To keep her alive, doctors and nurses must keep her on a constant stream of painkillers, sedatives, and paralytics.

As a result, Tinslee is paralyzed at all times. She currently is suffering from severe sepsis, not uncommon when patients require deep sedation and chemical paralysis to maintain organ function. Even with medication and support, Tinslee has ‘dying events’ 2-3 times per day. When she is in distress, Tinslee crashes and aggressive medical intervention is immediately necessary, which causes even more pain.”»

(Hospital statement.)

America Is Now the Divided Republic the Framers Feared

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/two-party-system-broke-constitution/604213/

No. This goes back to Clinton, Reagan, 1964, states’ rights, the civil war, the founding. The “peculiar institution” has poisoned us from the start and we need to get past it (because we still haven’t). AND I’m pretty sure the founders knew it, too, regardless of what Buttegieg says.

«a development that I date to the 2010 midterms.»

Difficulty of prediction

http://library.rumsfeld.com/doclib/sp/2382/2001-04-12%20To%20George%20W%20Bush%20et%20al%20re%20Predicting%20the%20Future.pdf#search=%22Lin%20Wells%20quadrennial%20review%22

Seems like a classic memo by Lin Wells (forwarded by Donald Rumsfeld to George W. Bush) in 2001 regarding the upcoming quadrennial review by… the Department of Defense?

(Five months later, 9/11 occurred.)