Jim's Fields of Observation

Here is the beginning of a great article by Kevin C. Tofer that helps compare Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS in a fair way. And it also helps point out the bias against Android many main-stream tech reporters have.

I was disappointed to read one of the most disingenuous comparisons between iOS and Android version uptake this morning. TechCrunch’s MG Siegler, whom I genuinely enjoy reading, took Android to task, noting that only 0.4 percent of Android handsets run Gingerbread, or Android 2.3; the current version of the operating system. By comparison, 89.73 percent of iOS handsets are on version 4.x, meaning an iPhone is about 180 times more likely than an Android device to be running the most current operating system version. There’s a valid point to be made here, but (pardon the pun) one has to compare apples to apples.

What exactly is Siegler comparing? One the iOS side, he’s counting the major version, iOS 4, and all other minor versions, i.e., 4.1, 4.2, etc. … Yet on the Android side, he’s specifically saying that Android 2.3 is the only one that matters. If you have Android 2.1 or 2.2, you’re behind and simply don’t count in Siegler’s world. Simply put: Counting the major and minor versions on one side the equation means you have to count them on the other side too.

Finish reading the article at iPhones 180x More Likely to Be Current Than Androids. Not.: Mobile Technology News

Image via Wikipedia

“And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”

Edward Winslow, describing the first Thanksgiving feast with the Wampanoag and English settlers.

Edward Winslow. “A letter sent from New-England to a friend in these parts.” In The Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, edited by George Cheever, 95-98. New York: John Wiley, 1848. http://bit.ly/e5k3TN

Happy Reformation Day!

Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences by Dr. Martin Luther (1517)
Published in: Works of Martin Luther: Adolph Spaeth, L.D. Reed, Henry Eyster Jacobs, et Al., Trans. & Eds. (Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Company, 1915), Vol.1, pp. 29-38.

Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed at Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and of Sacred Theology, and Lecturer in Ordinary on the same at that place. Wherefore he requests that those who are unable to be present and debate orally with us, may do so by letter.

In the Name our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.
2. This word cannot be understood to mean sacramental penance, i.e., confession and satisfaction, which is administered by the priests.
3. Yet it means not inward repentance only; nay, there is no inward repentance which does not outwardly work divers mortifications of the flesh.
4. The penalty [of sin], therefore, continues so long as hatred of self continues; for this is the true inward repentance, and continues until our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.
5. The pope does not intend to remit, and cannot remit any penalties other than those which he has imposed either by his own authority or by that of the Canons.
6. The pope cannot remit any guilt, except by declaring that it has been remitted by God and by assenting to God’s remission; though, to be sure, he may grant remission in cases reserved to his judgment. If his right to grant remission in such cases were despised, the guilt would remain entirely unforgiven.
7. God remits guilt to no one whom He does not, at the same time, humble in all things and bring into subjection to His vicar, the priest.
8. The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and, according to them, nothing should be imposed on the dying.
9. Therefore the Holy Spirit in the pope is kind to us, because in his decrees he always makes exception of the article of death and of necessity.
10. Ignorant and wicked are the doings of those priests who, in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penances for purgatory.
11. This changing of the canonical penalty to the penalty of purgatory is quite evidently one of the tares that were sown while the bishops slept.
12. In former times the canonical penalties were imposed not after, but before absolution, as tests of true contrition.
13. The dying are freed by death from all penalties; they are already dead to canonical rules, and have a right to be released from them.
14. The imperfect health [of soul], that is to say, the imperfect love, of the dying brings with it, of necessity, great fear; and the smaller the love, the greater is the fear.
15. This fear and horror is sufficient of itself alone (to say nothing of other things) to constitute the penalty of purgatory, since it is very near to the horror of despair.

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