Hosting issues May 26, 2006
I've seen this error quite a few times when trying to access my site lately.  Basically, it means that the MySQL server went down and needs to be rebooted (I think), though the rest of the web server is fine.  This wouldn't be a problem if my site didn't rely on MySQL, but since it's powered by WordPress, it's a big problem.  I've had some server problems in the past, but I thought things got fixed.  While I love my free web host, I'm not a fan of downtime.  And I can't really blame JD (the owner/admin/guru) because this isn't his full-time job.  Heck, this isn't his job at all.  He does it for free.  He was a full-time law student for a while, though he just graduated.  So I can't really get mad when the server goes down. 

And that's why I'm moving to a paid host.  I started thinking about it a while ago, but decided against it because I felt I could handle a little downtime in exchange for a free service.  But several times recently, my site has been down, and it's been down for hours at a time.  And if it's down when I check it (during the day, middle of the week), it could be down at night or over the weekend and I would have no idea.  And ironically, as I submitted a payment for hosting this morning, I tried to access my site and it was down.  So while I like free stuff, I feel the need to move on.  And like all things, this will be another experiment to see how things go.  If I don't like it or if I don't like paying, I'll probably change things around again. 

So as I move everything to a new server, you really shouldn't notice anything different, except that there won't be much (if any) downtime.  That's the plan anyway.  And for my future reference, check out MySiteSpace or TotalChoice if Dreamhost isn't good. #technology
The Da Vinci Debacle May 26, 2006
In January of 2005, I read a book that presented a bunch of arguments against the Da Vinci Code.  A year and 4 months later, I actually read the Da Vinci Code.  I'm completely backward.  I think the book was great:  A great story, a page-turner, easy to read, had short chapters, presented interesting ideas.  And I never read books, let alone fiction.  I'd like to see the movie too, though I've heard it got bad reviews. 

Without getting into the nitty gritty, I have two main objections to the book as a whole: 

1.  Primary effect.  I think that a certain percentage of people that read the book or see the movie (maybe 20%) will believe everything in the book as if it were pure fact.  They won't question where the facts came from.  They won't investigate on their own.  They'll accept what it says and use it to develop their own continually changing worldview.  These people probably didn't believe in Christianity to begin with, so the book was just icing on the cake.  It presented a few good ideas that could easily prove the absolute fallibility of Christianity. 

2.  Secondary effect.  I think the other 80% of people will understand that the book is fiction, so they'll read it as a work of fiction.  They might be unsure of the existence of Jesus' ancestors, but they don't see it as a bad thing if his ancestors actually did exist.  And while all the right-wing sword-toting Christians (I'm one of them, minus the sword) systematically disprove every argument against Christianity in the book, the book will serve a much less obvious purpose:  Raising doubt.  Whether or not Jesus was married isn't the issue.  The issue is whether or not the church might have possibly withheld information over the course of 19 centuries to make us believe something that wasn't completely true.  The issue is the idea that a secret society knows some things that would knock religion on its butt, and if these things were made known publicly, the entire world would be changed. 

So I think it has less to do with the actual content of the book and more to do with the general idea.  If Christianity was disproved (some think it already has been, even without the Da Vinci Code), it would open the door for other religions to be disproved.  And I think this would make certain people happy. #religion