Daniel Ott

Sharing buttons for Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are becoming a frequent request when doing web work. It's a good ask most of the time — but often it comes at the cost of readable or maintainable code.

In short, Wifepart and I are moving to Seattle on September 10.

I wrote something about vents.

There is a direct connection between the words you listen to and the life you live.

Did you know I wrote sitcoms? Me neither, but these two ideas came to me in a stroke of genius. I'd say they're pitted for a 9-10pm time slot on any major network.

Wifepart bought me an Apple TV for my birthday. The reasoning was two-fold.

Working on a remote server is a typical part of the developer's workflow. Also typical of this workflow is having a /home/username/ home folder that isn't where you end up doing 99% of the work. I think it is unnecessarily tedious to manually change to the httpdocs directory every time I log into one of my websites. So instead, I add this to the bottom of my user account's .bash_profile.

Recently I began reading G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. If that sounds familiar, it is probably because I've said it before. I have started this book and abandoned it at least two other times. It wasn't abandoned due to lack of interestingness or content, I simply got busy and it fell by the wayside.

Every time we close up shop for the evening at Main & Maple we do a thorough sweeping of the floors. It's a simple routine task that is incredibly important. It puts a full stop on today's work. It insures tomorrow is setup to start smoothly. It is in accordance with code for the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

God's ability to hear and answer prayers does not hinge on how frequently or articulately we tweet about them.

Wifepart and I got married on October 24 2009. Early in our marriage we started dreaming about some of the things we'd like to do in the course of our life together. These dreams included leading mission trips, traveling and running a coffee shop. These dreams were long-sighted, but by God's grace we've been able to live all these dreams in just shy of thirteen months of marriage.

I almost said "why I love OSX", but using the same word for an operating system as I use for my wife and the LORD seems to take away some of it's value. I put the LORD in all caps because that's how my Bible does it in the Old Testament sometimes. I think it does that for instances where the name Yahweh is used. Only the Hebrews didn't have vowels, so it'd be like YHWH. Maybe there's an Ovaltine packet that has the decoder to get from YHWH to LORD. It'd be a pretty crazy decoder, since the H decodes to both O and D.

I used to rely heavily on phpMyAdmin during web development. It was particularly useful before I began using frameworks like Rails and ExpressionEngine, which 99% of the time automatically generate my database needs and allow me to manipulate them by other means. For a time phpMyAdmin was an indispensable tool for interacting with the database. I still herald it as a great tool for any web developer, and being prepackaged with MAMP makes it an obvious solution for managing local databases while developing on a Mac.

1 John 3:2-3
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

The latest Ratatat video provides equal parts of hilarity and discomfort. It also educates us that stock photography does not directly translate to stock video.

Back in the Saddle. And By Saddle I mean United States. My wife, our team and I have been home from Northern Ireland for a week today. The two and a half weeks spent there serving within and beside the local churches of various denominations was a huge honor. I was able to spend some time sitting with and listening to seasoned pastors share their heart and love for the local church. I also got to dream with them and N. Irish friends about the future of youth work in their city, county and country. This was all amidst the craziness of running a two week youth program divided into five sections. It couldn't have run without the 45(ish) volunteer leaders who sacrificed their time, holiday and even finances to share Jesus with some kids and teenagers.

What Apple could do, in theory, is add a section to the Settings app where you could hide unwanted system apps from the home screen. But that’s un-iPhone-like. You’d then wind up with two ways to remove apps from the home screen — one for App Store apps and another for system apps. It’s simpler and more obvious for there to be one and only one way to do it, and simply leave the system apps as unremovable.
– John Gruber

Discussion and tangent thoughts on Scott Robbin’s Should You Develop an App or Mobile Website?.

Donald Miller came to speak at our church a few weeks ago. One thing he mentioned has been resonating in my brain: if you write an idea down, you’re now accountable to it.

It may be two months late, but I saved this idea as a draft in December to do a review of my life in 2009. A lot happened last year:

As I dig myself deeper into the trenches of ExpressionEngine (EE) development, I've been looking for solutions to optimize performance. Though the project that gets most of my attention is not a blog, I've been taking a blogazine approach to development, having many areas and entries with custom style and custom scripting that is built on a solid style and script base.

The hiccup with wanting to write more is that the things that peak my interest find little value among those who aren’t me, which is roughly 50% of the world last I checked. It may be higher than that, but the amount of attention given in my thought life would lead me to believe it’s possibly even lower. More research might be required for this stat.

Sufficient for the day is all that we can enjoy. We cannot eat or drink or wear more than the day’s supply of food and clothing; the surplus gives us the care of storing it, and the anxiety of watching against a thief. One staff aids a traveler, but a bundle of staves is a heavy burden.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Not all worship songs are created equal. Many today are man centered, not cross centered. They focus more on what we need, or what we want God to do, than on what Jesus has already done.
— C. J. Mahaney

string.replace("", replacement, "g"));
string.replace(//g, replacement));

It’s very surreal when looking back on the years of journals, prayers, attempts, disappointments, realizations and growth. Praise God.

My new idea is really exciting.

Not that you’d have known I was gone by reading here, but I am back from the Jet Set Tour to Rome, Italy and Marseille, France with The Upstream Collective. I’ve also been to Northern Ireland twice this year, changed jobs three weeks ago, and got engaged to a beautiful woman two weeks ago. I had some insightful words spoken into my life last night by said beautiful woman, who also changed jobs just four weeks ago, that we’ve been running really hard this year, that our lives have had multiple dramatic, statistically stress-inducing, changes, and that it may be time for me to slow down a bit.

I am not an expert on politics, nor do I aspire to be.

/* Recursive church model pseudo-code */

Church.plantAnotherChurch() {
  new Church localChurch;

  while (true) {
    localChurch.plantAnotherChurch();
  }
}

1 Peter 2:5
you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Some day you will die somehow and something’s gonna steal your carbon.
– Modest Mouse’s Parting of the Sensory

I decided to make a map with the responses I received from my previous post across Twitter, Facebook and danott.us. Thanks to everyone who replied - I shouldn't run out of places to go anytime soon!

Judges 5:31
Let those who love Him be like the rising of the sun in its might

I was just making my calendar for the week in iCal when I noticed that I have an all-day event scheduled for Saturday - solitude. One of the goals I set for myself in January this year was to take a day of solitude every month. I have been mostly successful at doing it so far. (A few of the earlier months were travel-crazy!)

user@localhost$PATH=/usr/bin/buddha:
/usr/bin/islam:
/usr/bin/mormon:
/usr/bin/jesus
user@localhost$export PATH
user@localhost$which God
/usr/bin/jesus
user@localhost$

A simple bash program for when you turn 40 and want to buy a Miata.

A roundup of photos taken during the trip.

TIME recently conducted an interview with N.T. Wright concerning our understanding of heaven. I found it to be a very good read, talking frankly of heaven involving both Jesus’ and our literal physical resurrection - not just transcendence to some spiritual state. From the interview, Wright says:

Blue Letter Bible is a terrific Bible study tool that I was recently introduced to. I haven’t dug too deep into it yet, but I did find this list which confirms/debunks a few commonly used proverbs of our day in regards to their Biblical validity. I would very much be interested to see a much more exhaustive list.

I was researching regular expressions for work and came across this gem. Programmers can provide some of the most clever humor.

In 1 Samuel 8 the people of Israel ask to have a king rule over them. God does not impose a king on them, they ask for a king. Their reason for wanting a king described in verses 4 and 19-20 is to be like all the other nations of the world. God tells Samuel that by asking for a king the people are rejecting God Himself as king. God also says that Samuel should give them what they ask for.

After miles upon miles of driving west/east/north/south across these United States I have arrived back home in Lexington, Kentucky. The last week was spent in Houston visiting with my sister and her husband. My time in Houston was book-ended with drives lasting seventeen and eighteen hours. The latter had my sister with me, but still no stereo which I count as a blessing. Hanging out with my sister is awesome because we usually only get to hang out with our voices through a telephone.

Go to durangojoes.com and you will be at the website of the coffee shop I am at right now. Last evening was spent once again in a Wal-Mart parking lot, this time in Durango, Colorado. Upon waking from my slumber I saw an “open” sign on a distant building, so I ventured over to find a full fledged coffee shop. I am now drinking a double vanilla latte in honor of Bradley Bramer. I signed onto teh internets and was greeted joyfully by Travis Whalen. It is amazing how a couple hours before I stumbled upon Durango last night I was in the middle of no where in the mountains, disconnected from everything. And now this morning I sit in a coffee shop on teh internets connected to everything from back home, even friends halfway around the globe. It reiterates to me how massive the world is, but how small it is at the same time.

Today I remained completely in the state of Colorado. I thought the mountains were a glorious creation from afar, but driving through them on twisty roads at high speeds made my appreciation grow at least three thousand times. I covered only two hundred miles today over the course of seven hours. It was by far the cheapest day so far, with only fifteen dollars spent on gasoline.

I’ll try to do this thing chronologically and talk about the events since last night. As soon as I got into the Wal-Mart parking lot I was ready to get some much needed rest. Wanting a clean mouth before sleep, I reached into my backpack to grab my toothbrush. Unfortunately instead of my toothbrush my middle finger found the sharp edge of my razor. My finger lost a good chunk of itself, and blood started pouring out uncontrollably. I grabbed the one napkin I had lying around, applied tons (literally 2000+ pounds) of pressure, and ran into the Wal-Mart bathroom. I cleaned my wound out with antibacterial soap, but it would not stop bleeding. As I kept going over to the paper towel dispenser blood kept dripping on the tile floor (which was freshly mopped by the way). I bought plenty of gauze and medical tape, and dressed my war wound like a champ.

Northern Ireland was fantastic, but I’ll write about that later. Today I decided to get in my car and embark on a good ol’ fashioned Native American “vision quest”. It’s not really a vision quest, but that sounds so much cooler than anything else I could call my driving across the country. I started at my friend’s apartment in Independence, KY this morning at 7:30AM. It is now 12PM and I am 20 miles outside of St. Louis, Missouri. It is really 1PM, but I changed time zones in the process. I think I will make it to Kansas City today, and onto Denver, Colorado tomorrow.

I made it all the way to Topeka, Kansas today. I am mooching internet from the Holiday Inn Express and am about to go sleep in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I drove around 730 miles today, leaving a little less than 500 to arrive somewhere in Denver tomorrow.

The following is a paper I wrote for GLY 130 – “Dinosaurs and Disasters” in April 2005 while attending UK. I found it on my hard drive and thought it was worth sharing. I actually turned this in.

As a young dude trying to figure out what to do with my life, I took it upon myself at the suggestion of Trevor to study the the New Testament letters from the Apostle Paul to the young dude Timothy. I only got through a couple paragraphs before having to stop and process some things.

Like many nights in Northern Kentucky, I spent this past Friday night/Saturday morning at one of my favorite places on earth, The Anchor Grill. If you are unfamiliar, this 24 hour establishment is amazing because as the motto on their menu says, “[They] may doze, but [they] never close,” and also they have (the best tasting) goetta omelets. It is always a fresh, renewing experience to sit in The Anchor late into the AM hours, drink pitchers of black coffee, and talk with fellow young men about both the practical and spiritual aspects of life. That is not to mean that spirituality is unpractical, in fact I believe the exact opposite (though it depends on what spirit you're dealing with, but that is a whole other topic). I am simply saying that our conversation covers a broad range of topics and is always encouraging.

Zombies are a taboo subject in America today. Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind when zombies are mentioned are movies portraying zombies in a negative light, survival-horror videogames, or mutilated flesh. Zombies generally produce only the most basic of motor functions, all of which are used haphazardly toward the single end goal of eating the flesh of living. A zombie’s body returns to life in a state of decay, it’s mind in a state of stupor. Where did this idea of the resurrected being stupid, thoughtless, decaying cannibals come from?