June 21, 2005

Spanish as PhD Language Requirement -- Help is on the way

My doctoral progess is being held up in the absence of a scholar who can test my Spanish competency. In light of recent blog discussions regarding language requirements, I thought I'd share my lament, and offer my plea to the biblioblogsphere. Is there no other Spanish-reading scholar here of whom I may inquire?

Two years ago, like a good traditional NT PhD student, I spent a summer in Germany and then returned home to take a translation exam to satisfy a requirement of my doctoral program, a standard program requiring two modern languages. The two languages have historically always been German and French, but because of my context, my interests, and encouragement from other scholars, I decided to prepare to make use of Spanish scholarship in my work. While my doctoral program approved of the decision, they have no means to satisfy the requirement, mostly because the GSFLT went defunct. My school offers a mini French and German program, but nothing in Spanish.
We have contacted three Spanish-reading scholars, and none have been able to assist. For several months now, I have been in limbo until we can figure out a solution. I can't submit my dissertation proposal until I get this taken care of. Hence, my plea for help.

Can anyone among my small but distinguished readership recommend a Spanish-reading biblical scholar that could be such a reader? The process need not be time intensive: send a Spanish Biblical Studies article... I translate... you read and say "yea" or "nay"... repeat as needed. :) My directer is very open to any qualified scholar using whatever means they wish to simply say, "Yes, Joe can make use of an article written in Spanish to contribute to his scholarship." We'll pay!

Update: The biblioblog community has been extremely responsive and helpful regarding my plea. I just want to say thank you, and that this represents some of the best of what an online community is. A few very able folks contacted me directly, as well as some in the comments for this post. But more so, colleagues contacted me to brainstorm ways in which "we" might solve this problem together--offers to make referrals, etc.
David Ford told me that he would love the opportunity to fail me, so it looks like we'll make arrangements for it soon. I'll let you know how it goes.

June 17, 2005

Review of Biblical Literature Newsletter

ee gads... I've just received my 3rd email edition of the Review of Biblical Literature Newsletter, June 17th, 2005. Somebody shut it off... Shut it off!. I wonder how many more we'll receive.

If you don't receive these weekly emails, you might want to consider it. From the RBL website:

If you are not a member and would like to receive the RBL weekly email newsletter (FREE!), send an email to rbladministrator@bookreviews.org with "SUBSCRIBE TO RBL" in the subject line.
If you frequent Mark Goodacre's blog, you've observed his personal obsession with strong dedication towards posting the review notices in web form.

June 07, 2005

Apple is 'Switching'

Apple and Intel

Apple announced today that beginning in 2006, new Apple computers will run not on IBM's Power PC chip, but on Intel's chip. The transition is brought about by IBM's failure to deliver higher speeds (the 3gig G5) and more importantly Intel's development plans that produce more productivity with lower power wattage usage--think powerbook. They actually confirmed that Marklar exists-from the beginning, OS X has been written to compile on both PPC and Intel all along.
Mac running on Intel Really, this means very little to you, typical bible scholars and pastors. It does mean that Macs will get faster quicker and/or possibly less expensive. Newer version of applications will be able to run natively on both older PPC computers or Intel machines. But still, your "old" OS X apps will run on the newer processors via a tranparent translator (which they've named "Rosetta"!) without any performance or speed issues. It will be the end of 2007 before Apple before the entire Macintosh computer line runs on an Intel Pentium processor. It means that apps that currently run only in Classic mode might be left behind (until someone writes a new emulation).

For others, especially developers, it means more. It most likely means the death of PPC Linux. Don't get crazy with the speculation, as does the oft-pleasantly-inciting Ken Ristau. This does not mean that Mac apps will be running on Windows, or vice versa. The applications run off of the OS kernel and API calls, not the chip alone. It will not be possible to run OS X on a generic Intel box, nor Windows on a Mac Intel machine. The combination of custom asic, Apple's nonstandard, nondocumented chipset, and most likely some form of DRM will allow Apple to maintain its control. Speculation is that it might be slightly more possible that the hackers will be able to get Windows running on a Mac Intel box.
It does mean that older applications which fall in the 25% of Mac apps that are currently coded other than in Xcode (Ac*cough*cough*cordance*cough*) will have to do some extra work to transition towards the new Universal Binary. But not immediately. For the next few years, they'll simply still just run.
All in all, it is an exciting day for Mac users.

Followup: I think it's worth repeating quotes from a C-Net interview being discussed in the comments to this post.

Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that." However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac," he said.
Microsoft won't be making Longhorn so that it can't run on a "Macintel" computer, but you better believe Apple will be doing everything they can to prevent hacks allowing a beige box bootup of OS X.