THE MANY FACES OF THE CHRIST

What you see above is the visual equivalent to my book The Many Faces of the Christ which surveys the various images and titles of Jesus in all the NT witnesses.

THE SOURCE OF THE SWINE FLU EPIDEMIC

Pigs are big in eastern N.C.. Shoot they are so big there are even pig parlors where they go to be beautified. But as we all know, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it will still be a pig.

Pigs of course are big in N.C. chiefly because of barbecue by which I mean hickory smoked pork (barbecue is not a verb, nor does it refer to cooking in general, nor are we talking about a sauce, nor does it involve any animal other than the divine swine). There has been a big pig scare lately due to swine flu, which is a serious matter but it has nothing to do with eating cooked pork chops, bacon, ham, or barbecue.

It has to do with kissin' a pig. So, our crack team of researchers, this time including Craig Beard, have spanned the globe (or at least spandexed the globe) to find ground Zero where this virus began, and this time we think we have found the culprit. It's not the little boy in Juarez Mexico. No, its Maybelle Alice Swope, age two and a half of Chittlin Switch N.C. (see below).



Let me explain what I have discovered. You see the Swope family are big fans of Sarah Palin. You will remember her Republican Convention speech about puttin' lipstick on a pig. Well, Maybelle took that to heart, and started do it with her favorite pig, Buster (yes he's a male pig, but he liked the orange-flavored lipstick). In fact Buster was so grateful for the lipstick that he began givin' Maybelle a kiss of thanks. The picture above is positive proof of the outcome.

I am happy to report that Maybelle, after a Tamiflu injection is doing fine, and the pig has gotten over his virus as well. However, we must be ever vigilant from now on about pig-kissin' babies.

Turns out as well that it is mostly older pigs that get this flu, so the eastern N.C. hog farmers may have to rethink their recent ad campaign which had as its slogan-- "We will serve no swine before its time".

Buster may soon however be expecting his date with destiny, and a one way trip to hog heaven.

And dat's all I got to say 'bout dat.

A BROWNIE INFILTRATES LIBERTY-- WITH JUSTICE FOR ALL

Meet Kevin Roose. He looks like your average nice college dude, and he is sitting in the pews in the chapel at Brown University. You may not have known Brown has a chapel, what with it being a bastion of liberalism, but it does. There is an interesting news piece about this young man who is a student at Brown but decided to go "behind enemy lines" and spy on the domain of Jerry Falwell for a semester, and write a story about his experience. Here is the link you should paste into your browser.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090422/ap_on_re_us/us_rel_religion_today

Now Kevin has written a book about his discoveries, entitled The Unlikely Disciple, and it is an unexpectedly interesting read. He may have gone to do an expose piece, but what he discovered was mostly good things. Yes, there were students who gossiped, and yes there were students doing the Facebook thing (oh no, not that!), and what he did not find was God's commandos planning another raid, or at least protest, at an abortion clinic. Well, the thing is, Liberty University today is a wildly more liberal place than it was twenty years ago (I jest) when I visited the child of one of my parishioners there to see how she was faring. I mean dating and public displays of affection are even allowed these days on campus-- what's the world coming to? Shoot Kevin even ended up singing in the choir at Thomas Road Baptist Church. And this brings me to the point of this post.

Though Kevin went clandestinely to Liberty, his book is actually pretty fair, and it is clear that his semester there had more good effect on him, than this book could have negative effect on Liberty. He prays regularly now and is considering joining a church.

And this brings me to a key point--- without pre-conditions, and without pre-conceptions we need to be welcoming at our Christian schools. I remember very well a conversation I had with President Harold Ockenga about 1975. He had told the admissions committee at Gordon-Conwell to allow a Mormon and a Jehovah's witness to enroll. This created something of a furor amongst some students and trustees. Was the school going liberal? Ockenga's response was right on target-- "Look, we are supposed to be able to share our faith and convert folks. And where better to do so then in a truly Christian school? If a Mormon comes here and isn't at all changed when he leaves, you have to wonder about how good a witnesses we are." Amen to that.

We need to stop being so self-protective and stop making fear-based decisions in our churches and schools. After all, our Bible says "greater is He who is in us, than any of those worldly forces". If we really believed that, it would change the way we do Christian education and church.

FRACTURED FAIRY TALES FROM THE FARM NO. 4

Meet the vermin, aka varmint, aka varmin. He is a fearsome critter, but his pelt is much in demand. And in fact, the fur industry has given this animal an extreme makeover, by taking away the first letter of his name. They call him the ermin. Don't be fooled by this P.R. move, they knew that the name vermin had negative connotations and would never sell. Their 'rebranding' is about as reliable as those labels inside of furs that say 100% pure mink or the like. The vermin has had an identity problem from the start because various people have used this term in a non-technical sense to refer to any creature that is a pest. For example, in Australia farmers call the wild rabbit a 'varmit'. No wonder the poor vermin is confused. Between misidentification and the rebranding of the fur industry anybody could be confused.

One of the great problems in nature is human interference. We are all the time taking species of animals outside their native habitats and placing them where they don't belong, where they have no natural enemies, and multiply too rapidly. Take for example the case of 'so-called' ermin wraps. One woman goes out to Needless Markup (my name for the store), and buys a shoulder wrap made of pure vermin fur. Next thing you know both her neighbors are envious and they want one too. Pretty soon they have proliferated prodigously all over the city, and there is no returning them to their native habitat, shoot you can even return them to Needless Markup. It becomes an epidemic. This explains the old southern expression 'a fur piece', as in they live a 'fur piece' from here. Contrary to what you think, this means 'living only the length of a fur wrap from me', and it is used as a unit of measurement because some folks measure themselves by how big a fur wrap they can afford to have. Imagine that, people measuring their worth by the expense of their possessions. What's the world coming to?

What is a vermin really? Its not a rabbit or a mouse, or an ordinary pest, its a long-tailed weasel. Need I tell you that the fur industry definitely couldn't sell weasel-wraps due to the negative connotation of the word weasel. So they weaseled out of that deal by calling it an ermin, or as the French prefer 'le ermine'. One place this weasel was introduced into is New Zealand, to control the rabbit population. But this had an unintended effect. The vermin took a likin' to kiwi fruit, and the whole country almost had to rename all their sports teams that they like to call the Kiwis. You can see what I mean about it being a mistake to take a critter out of its native habitat where it has natural predators after it.

In Europe in fact this critter has another name-- the stoat (no not the Stout, that's a beer, or at least a beer belly). One of the odd facts about this animal whose pelt is so widely loved, is that in fact it is a member of the SKUNK family. Yes, you heard me right, the skunk family. Can't you just hear someone saying "Don't you just love my new skunk-fur wrap?" To which the proper but impolite reply should be "No, it stinks if you ask me." The vermin/ermin/skunk is a noturnal creature, which explains the tendency to only wear the wrap to evening functions. But I must report to you a very alarming development. Now people are using the vermin for food.

Now I am not talking about the kind of folks who scrap up roadkill from the side of the highway and cook them. I have a tin of that I bought in Tennessee in my office, and I am not referring to that old Southern practice. No, I am referring to using weasel parts to make pasta! Yes, you read right--- pasta.

Perhaps you've heard of it--- vermincelli??? It's real thin, kind of like angel hair pasta, and I have been told that what it actually is is vermin whiskers that have been battered up and cooked into a hard yellowish consistency. Turns out the vermin can be both the meat and the noodles in your spaghetti if you so choose. Who knew? Meditate on these things, and take some action. Don't try and weasel out of your responsibility either. Just look at that picture at the top here and those fearsome teeth, and do the right thing, at night of course. Otherwise your spouse will notice when you snag her wrap out of her closet and take it to Goodwill.


Question from alert reader Kimberley from Vancouver B.C. Kimberley wants to know, where does the Easter bunny come from? Thanks for this question Kimberley, and I will resist telling you 'from the same place as Santa' because that would be a fib. In fact they come from Easter Island of course.

FRACTURED FAIRY TALES FROM THE FARM NO. 3

Ours is an age of hybrids. Hybrid cars, hybrid economies, hybrid vitamins and foods in general. It is thus not unexpected that there might be hybrid holiday food, in this case for Thanksgiving. Enter the turducken, one part turkey, one part duck, and apparently some chicken as well. Scientists have had theories about the origins of these rare birds, even though no one seems to have seen them in the wild. Here below is one scientific hypothesis on the matter.



Even cartoonists have gotten into the act speculating about how this hybrid creature originated and propagated.




Still, no one has been able to catch one glimpse much less of a photo of this animal in the wild, but we have some theories. For one thing talk about this bird only comes up in the fall--- during football season (although now a days ESPN seems to think every season is football season, even broadcasting spring practice games, so desperate are they to satiate the hunger of football fans). For another thing, the most famous football announcer who has regularly talked about this bird is a man who refuses to fly, riding around the nation in a tricked-out RV of considerable girth. I am referring to John Madden.



Madden has just suddenly retired, and I think I know why. His secret about the turducken was about to be exposed, because you see, that RV is in fact a rolling scientific lab, where experimentation has long gone on, on innocent animals, producing the turducken! Madden would ride along between games gathering up ducks, chickens, and turkeys in the fall, and putting them through his animal synthesizer. Though we never saw the process, we certainly saw the product and proof these shenanegins had been going on. Here is a shot of a cross-section of a turducken.



You can see perfectly well how the dark and light meet have been sectioned together in zones, an amazing feat of alchemy, and making it almost impossible for the picky person to be able to avoid eating both dark and light meet. Whilst there are some theories that the turducken originated in the kitchens of Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme, I assure you it is not so. Madden, the mad scientist, is at the bottom of this. If you wonder where he got his favorite expression "then BOOM, the quarterback got sacked....", the boom of course comes from him regularly experiencing explosions in the back of his RV whilst combining animals, using a modified farm combine.

I have little hope now that Madden will ever be caught and charged, especially in the wake of his sudden retirement. In fact, he is now making enough dough (figuratively speaking) from his Madden NFL game to be able to retire. And I have heard rumors as well that he has cut a deal with the NFL commish as well. You thought all those footballs were really made of pigskin? Certainly not! The skin of a football is much too dark to have come from a pig. No, in fact over the last ten years it has been the hides of turduckens that have been used! This may explain why so many field goals have gone wide right, because when a turducken tries to fly with the will of a chicken, the mind of a duck, and the wings of a turkey, it flies in wobbly fashion for sure. But there is more. Look closely at the laces on the football. Notice they are no longer made of cloth or string, but rather of some kind of hide or leather. I'm think it is the turkey gobblet that hangs down that has been made the sacrificial source. Enough for now, next episode we must investigate that most famous of all sly creatures--- vermin, or as it is known in the South, the Varmint.

Question d'Jour from Bubba in Chittlin' Switch N.C. Does the turducken produces as much tryptophan, that sleep-inducing drug, as the turkey does? Answer: No, far less which is why Madden was trying to substitute it for the turkey at Thanskgiving, to improve the football ratings on the Thursday afternoon NFL games on Turkey Day. What would the Pilgrims say!!!

FRACTURED FAIRY TALES FROM THE FARM NO. 2

Meet the spamster. He is native to small islands in the south Pacific, including Hawaii. The spamster is a cute little fellow who starts out without ears, and then grows little pointy ones, the better to hear the commands of his master when its time to stand up, roll over, play dead, or in general, look cute. When he is fully grown the spamster tends to be somewhat long and lanky, a sort of skinnier version of the chihuahua. The spamster is a carnivor who loves to eat chicken, ham, barbecue, but not beef. The cows in the Chick-Fil-A commercial think he's cool and are thinking of starring him in a future episode. Because the spamster only eats chicken and lean pork products, he is svelt and has very flexible muscle tissue produces a wonderfully flexible chewy meat product---- called SPAM. And you thought that spam was simply bad email. Wrong. Its a whole food group. Perhaps whilst perambulating through the grocery store you have come across a can of SPAM.



Little did you realize how many spamsters had to be slaughtered to produce just one can of bright pink, chewy spam. One estimate puts it at 13. Yikes. Now spam is a truly versatile food. So versatile that there are whole Spam cookbooks, and indeed Spam creation contests. For example, here below you will find an Ipod Shuffle created out of spam! Who knew!




Spam is especially popular in Hawaii, and anthropologists hypothesize this is because the natives hunted the spamster to near extinction for many centuries on the island of Molokai. Not surprisingly, the spamster jumped on some steamers heading west to the Orient, only to discover that their tasty meat was even more popular in places like Hong Kong where you can get Spam-musabi--- no lie, see below.



But that is hardly all. Spam has become not only the breakfast of champions, but the inspiration of poets in Japan, so it is no surprise at all that we have Spam Haiku. You think I jest??? Take a look.



It is hardly a surprise then that those latter day saints of comedy, the Monty Python troop picked up on the legendary potential of this food, and created a suitable epic to memorialize it--- SPAMALOT of course. I can hear them singing now-- "A law was made a distant moon ago here. July and August shall not be too hot, and there's a legal limit to the snow here... in SPAMALOT."

All of this attention of course has led to a comeback in America of SPAM after a brief lull. In hard economic times SPAM is very useful, as it has a shelf life of a millenium, even if the can is open :) And for harried housewives or househusbands, the answer to the call, what's for dinner, has increasingly been--- fried or pickled, or baked SPAM, or SPAM sandwiches. Notice the following ad.



But take a moment to have some pity on the poor spamster. These days their meat is in so much demand,especially the female meat which is chewier, that there are hardly any spamster spinsters in the known world. This is a sad irony, because the truth is-- there is no content to SPAM. Its filling because its all made of filler. The truth is that SPAM in a can contains only 10% actual spamster meat. The rest is unmentionable, undesirable, and unconsumable filler. Rather like the spam you get on your computer. So once more, please write Pres. Obama and ask him, not least since he is a native of Hawaii, to put the spamster on the endangered species list. Unfortunately I gather he is not all that sympathetic to this cause, judging from what was served at a recent White House lawn picnic for under-privileged children (see below).




Speaking of children, Suzie from Sagebrush Gulch in Wyoming has written asking for an explanation as to why sheep are so dumb. Well Suzie its a sad, and even sexist tale. It appears that female sheep are smarter than rams, so some smart scientists decided to take what little gray matter a sheep could spare and inject it into the brain of the ram, so he would have more ram memory, and would stop butting things he had just butted five seconds before. The goal was to create less senior moments in rams, but like all such messing with God's creation and creatures, this experiment went terribly awry. Unfortunately what happened is that it made the ram remember how much it enjoyed mating with sheep, whilst the sheep forgot what happened to her the last time this occured, and so there has become a bumper crop of dumb sheep being bred, and appearing now all over the world. Its gotten so bad that in the Lake District in England sheep won't get out of the road even if being bitten by the sheep dog. Sad, just sad.

In our next episode of Fractured Fairy Tales from the Farm, we must turn our attention a holiday creation--- John Madden's Turduckin.

FLYING SOLO WITH A FRIEND-- 'THE SOLOIST'

The life of a mentally ill person is messy, and difficult, and often heart-rending. And what is interesting about such a person is that it is by no means simply a matter of some chemical imbalance in the brain, though that can be a large part of the problem. There is plenty of clinical evidence to support the view that a mentally ill person can live a much more normal life with plenty of love and friendship, indeed there is even evidence that such relationships can go some distance to change the chemical imbalances in the brain. Imagine that. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and are at the end of the day, psycho-somatic wholes, who are often far from whole. And of course as a culture gets more ill, people get more ill as well, and the ones who most often go down for the count first are the sensitive souls--- musicians, poets, artists, the one's who live out of the life of the soul and express in words or musical sounds. When the world is sick and fallened and abnormal, what then counts as normal, any more?

One such person with largeness of soul is Mr. Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Jr. Yes, he is a real person, and the movie 'the Soloist' attempts to tell the story of some of his life, which to say the least is still a work in progress, but then that is true of all of us. Played by Jamie Foxx with empathy and sympathy and conviction (an Oscar worthy performance) this story, while hard to watch, is not hard to get emotional about. Most of us have had someone in our lives who at some juncture needed serious counseling, or medicine, or both because they were, or were becoming mentally unwell. What makes Mr. Ayers' story all the more remarkable is that he was and is a musician gifted by God with a rare talent for playing music--- in this case primarily stringed instruments. And Steve Lopez (played well by Robert Downey Jr.), exceptional columnist for the L.A. Times has chronicled his life first in columns and then in the form of a book. Here is a glimpse of the real Mr. Ayers...



The movie is as moving as such a disjointed and painful life can be, and indeed it gives glimmers of hope. I honestly don't understand those reviewers who don't get this movie simply because in form as well as continuity it seeks to tell the tale in a manner that suggests the incompleteness and messiness and troubling aspects of the story. This man has not led and is not leading a nice and tidy life, nor is it all happily ever after in the end. Authenticity rather than fantasy is what the director seems to be striving for and capturing. So, for about two hours one walks a mile with Mr. Ayers, and with his 'friend' Mr. Lopez. Mr. Lopez is not spared criticism in this movie, for indeed he did not originally set out to be a friend, he set out to write a remarkable story. And there is indeed a Christian under-current to the movie, ranging from the way the cello teacher is portrayed to the way Mr. Ayers prays the Lord's prayer, but in his less lucid moments thinks Mr. Lopez is either God or Neil Diamond (what a juxtaposition--- I can hear 'Brother Love's Salvation Show playing now in my head). There is also an interesting interview scene with an atheist where the atheist admits-- "its hard to build community around having something you don't believe in common." For sure.

Mr. Ayers has a profound and abiding love for Beethoven, and this movie shows over and over how, as Shakespeare once said, "music soothes the savage breast" even of a mentally ill person. Beauty, real beauty can do that. It can take you far from your troubles and even draw you close to God. And make no mistake, when you have become ill whilst becoming a world class cellist at Julliard, and then crashing and burning completely, you definitely need a little help from above. I must say I like Mr. Ayers taste in music. He goes for the best. But he had become a street person, a person of no fixed address, a person cast aside as the flotsam on the sea of life. This story is more about learning how to become less selfish and more loving and more friendly even towards those hard to love than it is about music however. This story reminded me of the story of a famous hymnist who lived early in the twentieth century and was incarcerated due to his mental illness. The story goes that he, Mr. F.M. Lehman, died in his confined cell, having written on the padded walls the following words...

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry.

If that verse is the mark of an unhinged mind, then we need more unhinged minds in this world.

Had Jesus lived in L.A. in my life time, Mr. Ayers is surely one of the people he would have spent time with. And so should we. Go see this movie, but take a box of kleenex with you. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for..."

Digital Clock using Classic LED 7 Segment Displays

This is a simple digital clock project using PIC16F887 and classic LED 7-Segment from HP 5082-7414 created by punkky. The displays are bright red and sun light viewable. Each clock consumes about 0.25W (50mA, 5V) when the PIC16F887 operates at 250kHz (display refresh rate is about 61Hz).

Tag: digital clock, 7 segment display, PIC project src

Digital Clock using Classic LED 7 Segment Displays

This is a simple digital clock project using PIC16F887 and classic LED 7-Segment from HP 5082-7414 created by punkky. The displays are bright red and sun light viewable. Each clock consumes about 0.25W (50mA, 5V) when the PIC16F887 operates at 250kHz (display refresh rate is about 61Hz).

Tag: digital clock, 7 segment display, PIC project src

FRACTURED FAIRY TALES FROM THE FARM NO. 1

Meet the Nauga, a species not of gerbil, hamster or guinea pig but of its own, and indigenous to America! The Nauga is known for its bug-eyes. The Nauga, unfortunately today, the day after Earth Day, has to be reported as an endangered species, oddly enough endangered by the Barca Lounger.

You see it takes an enormous amount of pelts to produces a naugahyde couch or reclining chair. In fact Sam van Pelt and Joe Hyde from PETA reckon that it takes over 1,000 Nauga's hides to produce such a product. The plight of the Nauga was recently brought to national attention by the Disney film 'Bedtime Stories', in which a genuine Nauga masqueraded as a guinea pig and family pet. It was an Oscar worthy performance but sadly there is no animal category at the Oscars.

Where do Nauga's come from? They appear to have originated in the northern peninsula of Michigan which explains why it is that so many loungers and recliners have historically been made in Michigan, including Lazy Boy Recliners.

The Nauga, interestingly enough is actually a carnivor, preferring cheese burgers to all other foods, which explains why the Nauga tends to be portly. Ranging in color from brown to white and splotchy versions in between, it is estimated that today there are less than 500 Nauga's still out there in their native habitat. This is of course why the latest PETA campaign to save the Nauga from being hunted to extinction involves printed bumper stickers which read in large black letters NAUGA! HIDE! Unfortunately Nauga are illiterate.

Sadly the Nauga has not yet been put on the endangered species list, but President Obama made a campaign promise whilst stopping to garner votes from environmentally conscious "Yoopers" (that's Upper Penisula folk for the unenlightened) to get right on having the Nauga listed.

Unlike the hamster or gerbil or domestic mice, the Nauga is not good on treadmills, which also helps explain its portly physique. In fact the Nauga likes nothing so much as to lie around all day, swilling beer and eating cheese burgerettes-- BK burger bites being a new favorite. Female Nauga's apparently are very turned on to male Naugas with BK Burger bites in their paws.

The Nauga has in fact become so domesticated that one can regularly find them dumpster-diving with the opossums behind a Wendy's or a Burger King. Their current favorite flick is 'Super-Size Me'. I suppose it is sort of poetic justice in the 'you become what you eat' category that Naugas who like to lounge around are being made into naugahyde loungers.

What is to be done to save the little Nauga? My suggestion would be to stop buying naugahyde chairs and loungers altogether. Go for the straight plastic ones like good and smart-shopping red necks usually buy. Plastic at least does not come from a harmless little animal, and as we all know, plastic, like cockroaches, endures forever, so its good value for money and can be passed down for generations.

In our next episode we intend to tackle another animal worry--- namely why are sheep so dumb! Hint: Someone, as of yet unidentified, is stealing their ram memory. Also, we will address where SPAM comes from, and why Hawaiians eat so much of it.

A MODEL OF HEROD'S TEMPLE

Alec Garrard is a farmer, but he had a dream (not to be confused with a field of dreams). Alec has worked for more than 30 years to create a full and accurate model of Herod's Temple. His version of the Temple is so impressive that some of the world’s top archaeologists and experts from the British Museum have come to view it. The pictures speak for themselves. See what you think. BW3

PIC Debugging Tool

In-Circuit-Debugger is handy and easy PIC debugging tool for PIC programmers that interface to the target PIC placed- board. The device comes with MPLAB plug-ins that provides a full rich set of commands and functions in order to debug your code in real time. The project created by Electrical Engineer Atanasios Melimopoulos.

After hours of using some brands of ICDs, ICD2, etc. on different projects, I faced some hardware situations where the two pin interface ICD <-> PIC becomes annoying and sometimes difficult to work around. Apart from the fact that your target PIC must run at selected clock frequencies that allows the ICD-Uart baudrate multiplier to fit. Also, some pics do not allow the same on-hook commands upon which ICDs are based. There is no electrical isolation between the pic-target board and the USB–Serial PC-GND interface.

Download
In-Circuit-debugger

tag : PIC debugger, PIC programmer tools, PIC project src

PIC Debugging Tool

In-Circuit-Debugger is handy and easy PIC debugging tool for PIC programmers that interface to the target PIC placed- board. The device comes with MPLAB plug-ins that provides a full rich set of commands and functions in order to debug your code in real time. The project created by Electrical Engineer Atanasios Melimopoulos.

After hours of using some brands of ICDs, ICD2, etc. on different projects, I faced some hardware situations where the two pin interface ICD <-> PIC becomes annoying and sometimes difficult to work around. Apart from the fact that your target PIC must run at selected clock frequencies that allows the ICD-Uart baudrate multiplier to fit. Also, some pics do not allow the same on-hook commands upon which ICDs are based. There is no electrical isolation between the pic-target board and the USB–Serial PC-GND interface.

Download
In-Circuit-debugger

tag : PIC debugger, PIC programmer tools, PIC project src

All That Jazz--- in Daytona Beach

My sister Laura and I are musicophiles. To say we are music lovers is to say too little its closer to music-aholics ('Hi my name is Ben, and its been 21 days since I bought my last CD'). We were raised on the piano bench (our mother is a pianist and piano teacher) and so we were always going to concerts-- mostly classical, until I finally convinced my mother that Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass were not leading us all down the prime rose path to musical destruction. Of course, I wasn't going to take her to a Rolling Stones concert :)

But I digress. Over the years, my sister and I have gone to many concerts, rock, classical, and in the last twenty or so years, mostly jazz, as rock has waned, and you have to be in a major city to see a really good symphony most of the time.

So this past Thursday I flew down to see my Sis in Jacksonville and we went to the Daytona Beach International Festival (whose motto is 'Face the Music') with a wide variety of acts, mostly classical and jazz. We had tickets to concerts on Thursday and Friday night to see first Chris Botti and his band, and then the Yellowjackets with a stellar guest guitar player, Mike Stern.

I have, and have listened to, various Chris Botti CDs, most of which are decidedly in the smooth jazz or even pop category, and so I was mildly amused at his comment during the concert in which he distinguished himself from Kenny G, the ultimate snooze time smooth jazz artists. But then something unexpected happened--- I went to what I expected to be a smooth/snooze jazz concert, and a real jazz concert broke out.

This was in part because Botti had an incredible back up band-- including the ever funky Mark Whitfield on guitar and the Grammy winning Billy Childs on piano, plus a wunderkind on drums and a better than average bass player. The result was much jazzier versions of the Botti repotoire.

And in addition there was another surprise--- Botti appears on his CDs, and when he plays with Sting as a quiet, cool, sophisticated dude. Who knew he was Mister Entertainment in concert? He was alternately funny, playful, self-deprecating, and warm. When a group of people sitting down front waltzed in 30 minutes late he called them out, and then proceeded to play tiny samples of what they missed. It was hilarious. Boy were they put in their place. I must confess I really hate it when people come in late to good concerts, almost as much as I hate people talking loudly either on their cell or in person, especially during a quiet number. Why don't they have bouncers at concerts for rude and crude people who have no respect for the music, the musicians, or those who actually came to hear the music? I'm just sayin'....

The concert Friday night was vintage Yellowjackets who are still on top of their game and have added a whole new wrinkle with Mike Stern. Now Mike Stern is a very impressive jazz guitarist, who often sounds very much like early Pat Metheny, and that's the best compliment anyone could give him. He's a fine ensemble player as well. The Yellowjackets played mostly their new CD which features Stern. Speaking of featuring, it is mighty hard not to focus on Jimmy Haslip, the astonishing bass player (six string bass strung backwards as he plays it left handed), who is always impressive. He made Botti's bass player look very ordinary indeed. One of the highlights of the evening was Mintzer's long tour de force exploration of a ballad on the ewi, a truly versatile electronic woodwind instrument of sorts.

One of the more interesting aspects of these two concerts is that while the Yellowjackets drew a smaller but more knowledgeable jazz crowd, Botti attracted a lot of middle aged and older women who came to swoon over Botti and his love tunes. Chris was gracious, but it was funny to see all these women swooning over a much younger man who obviously was not interested in anything but playing and having fun, and being a good entertainer.

Nevertheless, a good time was had by all, and I can certainly commend the new Yellowjackets CD with Mike Stern, called Life Cycle. Its mighty good straight ahead jazz in a Yellowjackets kind of style, and no, they did not pay me to say this.

Inspiring robots set to nice music

Since, I'm on a bit of a mini-robot kick at the moment. I thought I would share some of the videos I've seen lately that at least inspired it. The elegance of some of these movements and the music remind me of the child-like imagination that we perhaps once had before becoming more jaded with age. At least, the dreams of a little engineer.







This last one is just fun.

Inspiring robots set to nice music

Since, I'm on a bit of a mini-robot kick at the moment. I thought I would share some of the videos I've seen lately that at least inspired it. The elegance of some of these movements and the music remind me of the child-like imagination that we perhaps once had before becoming more jaded with age. At least, the dreams of a little engineer.







This last one is just fun.

Bart Interrupted--- A detailed Analysis of 'Jesus Interrupted'--- Coda

In the first part of Chapter Six Bart Ehrman rehearses for us some of his major conclusions to his earlier work, Misquoting Jesus. Since I have responded to that elsewhere (see e.g. my Gospel Code book, and earlier blogs) I will not repeat myself here. The point Bart wants to stress, to which I do not object, is that some of the textual variants in our Greek NT manuscripts are theologically significant. Again, he cites 1 John 5. 7-8, which if deleted, deletes one discussion of the Trinity in the NT. He then goes on to add, that the response to his saying this is not in the original text is that the notion of the Trinity can be found elsewhere in the NT (see e.g. Mt 28). In my view, both the deity of Christ and the Trinity are notions that are clearly in various NT texts, but these ideas are equally clearly only more fully developed later in church history, at various ecumenical councils and elsewhere. Bart admits that “every single Christian doctrine” (p. 186) can be found in Scripture without appealing to textually debated or dubious ideas. If this is so, then it is of course right to ask the question--- What’s the big deal about textual variants if no essential Christian doctrine is at risk of being read out of the canon due to textual uncertainty? Well, in this book I think Bart makes clearer that the issue is that some textual variants are of theological significance, and as such we should not ignore this fact. I am fine with this point, but what this means is that the “sky is falling” approach to textual variants does no justice to the actual situation. I don’t lose any sleep over whether Lk. 22.43-44 is canonical or not, since of course the Passion of Christ can be found elsewhere in the Gospels. Bart is right that it matters to getting an accurate assessment of Luke’s portrayal of Christ as to whether these verses are original or not, but that is the only way it really matters.

The bigger issue that Bart wants to raise is of course how one could think the Bible as we have it is the inspired Word of God when, 1) this concept is limited to the original autographs of the Bible, and 2) we don’t have them any more, and anyway 3) the canon of Scripture was compiled by fallible human beings, not by God. For him, the deeper theological problem here is why God would allow us to lose the original manuscripts if it was so important to have the inspired Word of God. This is a perfectly appropriate question, and it deserves a fair answer. If we wanted to give a theological answer, we could immediately remind the reader of the problem with golden calves… namely in the hands of fallen human beings they tend to get worshipped. It is entirely believable to me that God allowed things to go as they did in regard to the original manuscripts of the Bible to prevent mistaking the means for the end, and even worshipping the means, by which I mean the original autographs of the Bible. In other words, bibliolatry, the worship of a perfect book, was and is a real possibility for fallen human beings. But in fact a more historical answer is possible. The Bible is not a book written by God (apart ostensibly e.g. from something like the ten commandments), it is a book written by human beings inspired by God, and there is a difference. More to the point the Bible, after the time of the original inspired authors, was transcribed by non-inspired and often not very inspiring scribes! They made numerous mistakes in copying, and sometimes they also made deliberate changes. Bart is right about this, but he is also right that no essential Christian doctrine hangs on these variants at all. There is a difference between a theologically significant textual variant, and a theologically crucial or world-changing one. And there aren’t really any of the latter out there to be worrying about. The Bible as we have it is an ever more close approximation of what was originally given. The good news is today, as Metzger says we know with a high degree of certainty what about 92% of the Greek NT originally said, and no crucial doctrine hangs on the other 8%. Indeed we have over 5,000 mss. of the Greek NT in whole or in part, and this is frankly far more and better evidence than we have for any other document of comparable antiquity. And we keep finding more such fragments and documents, which leads us closer and closer to the original text. It would be nearer to the truth to say that textual criticism actually helps confirm our faith and understanding in the original text and what it said, than deconstructs such a faith, because as it turns out in the vast majority of cases of importance, the scribes faithfully represented what was originally written.

So in the end, as it actually turns out, textual criticism is not in the main where I would disagree with Bart about most things. It is rather his reading of early Christian history that is fundamentally problematic. Consider for example the banner headline on p. 191—‘The Wild Diversity of the Early Christian Church’. Which church are we referring to? The church of the first century A.D. or thereafter? It doesn’t much matter to the discussion of the NT canon if there was considerably more diversity in the church in the second and subsequent centuries of Christian history, when in fact no books in the NT canon were written in or came from the period after A.D. 100. It is not really of much relevance to the discussion of the NT to talk about the Marcionites or the Gnostics when no such groups existed in the first century A.D. and we have no hard historical evidenced to suggest they did. Even in the case of the Ebionites, the NT itself bears witness to no such extant group, and no NT document refers to them or seeks to correct or rebut them. If they existed in the NT era, it would seem they were either so tiny or insignificant that they did not call for mention or rebuttal even by notably argumentative types like Paul who ran into all types of Christians in his travels. The problem for Bart is a fundamental historical assumption that he has by no means demonstrated, namely that the diversity one finds in the second century and subsequent centuries of the church already existed in the first century A.D. even when it comes to radical theological and ethical diversity. What we do find however in the NT documents is already a concept of heresy and its condemnation. This is not a surprise when all the NT documents were written by conservative Jews or their co-workers, such as Luke. So, again, it is not helpful nor is it convincing to chronicle heretical movements from the 2nd and subsequent centuries and either assume: 1) they already existed in the NT era, or 2) that the first century church must have been as diverse as that of subsequent eras. In fact, the evidence suggests this was not so, and Bart’s attempt to find dueling apostles and apostolic movements evidenced in the NT is weak at best, and I have dealt with it in previous posts in this series. So far as the first century church was concerned there was only two groups--- the proto-orthodox ones, and the heretics who had not yet become full-fledged movements like later Gnosticism. The proto-orthodox group does not begin in the second century with Irenaeus or Tertullian and the like, it begins with Paul, and Peter and Mark and others in the first century. Irenaeus and others are simply running with the ball the apostles and their co-workers handed them. They are certainly not the inventors of Biblical orthodoxy, and they would strongly protest any such suggestions were they here to do so.

Perhaps the most serious error in the discussion in Chapter Six is the assumption that ‘the proto-orthodox’ sat around and decided which books ought to be in their corpus of sacred texts and which not. The historical truth is quite otherwise. There was never a time when any Gnostic texts were ever included in a list of sacred texts, either a list like the Muratorian canon list in the second century A.D., or even the list of the heretic Marcion. The notion that the situation was open ended until the 4th century, or even that some heretical books were ‘in’ until they were excluded in the 4th century is historically false. There were indeed some extra books considered for inclusion amongst the sacred texts—books like the Shepherd of Hermas, or even the Apocalypse of Peter. What is notable about such books is that they were basically theologically and ethically consonant with the books from the NT period. No books from any Gnostic collection, or Ebionite collection were ever considered for inclusion in the NT, and with good reason. The criteria for being considered a sacred text, as already manifested in the Bishop Sarapion controversy in the second century over the Gospel of Peter were: 1) apostolicity (they had to be written by apostles) and/or; 2) eyewitnesses or co-workers of eyewitnesses. This in effect meant that the canon was closed of necessity by the end of the NT era, because no apostles or eyewitnesses survived beyond that period or wrote any documents beyond that period of time. I have dealt with this issue of canon and canon lists at great length in The Gospel Code, and in my forthcoming book What’s In a Word? (Baylor), so I will not belabor the point here. What happened in the 4th century was the recognition of the books which had already and indeed always been considered apostolic with very little debate ( 2-3 John and Revelation are partial exceptions, for there was some debate about them, especially about Revelation because Eusebius and others did not like its eschatology). One of the mistakes Bart makes when it comes to a manuscript like Codex Alexandrinus is the assumption that just because a book is included in a codex, it must be assumed to be considered canonical. Wrong. Such codexes are mini-libraries of collected and valuable books deemed to be orthodox. That 1 and 2 Clement is included in this codex merely means that someone thought it was valuable Christian literature that was not heretical. Codex Alexandrinus or Sinaiticus are not canon lists. They are approved reading samples. Already in the second century we see with Bishop Serapion a difference between what was approved for reading by Christians, and what would be read from the pulpit and preached on. The former corpus of books is larger than the latter. The notion of a 4th century power play, instigated in part by Constantine in order to determine the canon and what was orthodox Christianity is a very poor reading of what actually happened at the Council of Nicaea. The canon of 27 books was recognized later in the 4th century, not at Nicaea when Constantine was present, and I use the word recognized advisably. The church in Africa, Asia and in the West recognized these 27 books as our NT, which is pretty amazing since they disagreed on other important issues such as church polity. But they did so because they understood that the proper criteria for recognition was that these source books are either apostolic or eyewitness in origins. And as such they had to come from the very beginnings of Christianity, and could not include later fictions and forgeries. And in my view, the NT certainly does not include such books, nor were heterodox books ever considered for inclusion in the canon. And this rule thus applies—a book can not be said to be excluded from a canon that it was never included in, in the first place. You will look in vain for lists that include any Gnostic texts in early Christian canon lists.

At the end of the day, Bart Ehrman continues to do Christians a good service, as he makes them examine their unexamined assumptions about early Christianity, the origins of the Bible, and other related subjects. The fact that many of us would disagree with his historical analysis is not because we are reading the Bible devotionally and he is reading it as a historian. No, the difference is because we disagree about the history itself and what conclusions are warranted from a critical analysis of the history. My point would be that Bart Ehrman is entitled to his opinion but he does not speak for the majority of ancient historians when it comes to the New Testament, though he certainly speaks for a growing and ever-more vocal group amongst those historians. Bart Ehrman speaks for himself, and my concern would be to make clear that there are thousands of good and critical NT scholars of some faith or no faith who would disagree with his conclusions. The issue here is not faith vs. critical thinking, or devotional reading of the Bible vs. scholarly reading of the Bible. The issue is what sort of critical reading of early Christian history and its texts is warranted by the evidence, and indeed which view is more open minded about what counts as evidence, and what does not. In my view, Bart unnecessarily brackets out in advance too much of the data as ‘mythical’ or ‘miraculous’ which leads to skewed conclusions on various fronts. And this is sad, because Bart Ehrman is a fine writer, and lecturer and debater and an increasingly influential one. One can hope he will continue the conversation and his mind may change on some of these matters.

In the meantime, it is important to stress in conclusion that Bart Ehrman is not the voice of the critical consensus on the NT. He could be called the popular voice of one particular more liberal or radical interpretation of the data. BW3

Adventures with Bioloid

A couple of weeks ago, I was participating in the Siggraph Jury review process looking at some of the projects submitted this year. There were a couple of submissions using humanoid servo motor robots. Since I have always had an itch to play with robots that I've never had a chance to scratch, I decided to look into buying one. One of the best selections of these robots I found online was at Trossen Robotics. After a lot of reading and video watching, the current highest rated robots appear to be the Robonova, Kondo KHR-2HV, Futaba RBT-1, and the edutainment Robotis Bioloid. These are all very impressive robots that all (with the exception of the Bioloid) are used in the RoboCup Soccer competitions. Combined with the $900-$1500 price tags, these are definitely not your typical kids toy.

After much deliberation, I ended up going with the Bioloid. It's one of the more well documented robots with a healthy developer community, and it's highly reconfigurable. It comes with an "errector set"-like kit which allows you to build a variety of robots, not just humanoids. However, this modularity comes at the cost of extra weight. So, while the power-to-weight ratio of the servo motors maybe comparable to the higher-end robots, the overall performance of the robot is noticeably slower and clunkier. It also happens to be one of the cheaper robots at$900. I really liked the re-configurability (for future robot projects), the number of degrees of freedom (particularly in the hip), and the size of the community support/English documentation.


When I first got it, I was a little intimidated by the number of pieces in the box. Being an educational robot, I was hoping it was going to be a quick and simple setup. While the instructions are fairly easy to follow, it did take me about 5 hours from opening the box to a completed robot. Assembly requires handing many similar looking parts and lots of tiny screws. However, it is very satisfying to see the robot slowly take form as you assemble the components.


Once it is done, you do get an urge to say out loud "IT'S ALIVE!" with a grin on your face.


The included CD does have software to program and contol the robot, but as I expected, it is somewhat limited to keyframe pose playback or simplfied visual programming. My original intent was to run the robot using my own C/C++ or C# program. So, I didn't spend much time with the included software other than to verify the robot worked and to get an understanding of the control flow. The C development tools described by the documentation are for writing programs that run on the Atmega128 chip inside the robot. What I wanted was to run the control logic on my PC. However, getting my own software to control the robot ended up being quite a bit more challenging than I had expected.

The first major hurdle I had was the physical connection. The kit comes with a serial cable for communication with the robot, but it uses a DB-9 connector that is only found on desktops these days and my main machine is a laptop. The Bioloid has an expansion slot on its control board, the CM-5, for a wireless Zigbee connection. There are a few resources online explaining how to use a Bluetooh Module instead of a Zigbee module. So, I had ordered a BlueSMIRF module (WRL-08332) from Sparkfun in anticipation of doing this.

The Bioloid controller requires 57600 baud serial communication, but the Bluetooth modules typically come set to 9600 baud. To my frustration, the information on Sparkfun's website on exactly how to re-configure the baud rate is a little obtuse. They have different chipset versions with different command sets. Something I burned about 2 hours learning was that newer modules, with the BGB203 chip, CANNOT be configured wirelessly over the Bluetooth connection. They have to be configured via the wired TTL TX/RX connections. Moreover, to change the baud rate and save it to memory requires a TTL connection that can dynamically change its baud rate to issue the "save to memory" command at the new baud rate. My short lived attempt at trying to using a second Bluetooth module was a failure because while it could issue the "change baud rate" command it could not issue the "save to memory" command. =oP Anyway, once I got my hands on a USB TTL-232 cable, things went smoothly. One other important thing to check is the Bluetooth passkey of the module (using the configuration commands). In Vista, to make the Bluetooth serial port binding behave nicely I had to configure the bluetooth connection to use the passkey. It happened to be set to "0000" on my module despite the documentation from Sparkfun indicating it would be "default".


The second problem I ran into was that once I connected the Bluetooth module to the Zigbee communication pins, I discovered that it is NOT A REPLACEMENT for to the PC LINK serial programming cable port at the top of the CM-5. The data from the Zigbee unit is only meant to provide command bytes triggering behaviors in a program running natively on the CM-5. What I wanted was raw access to the servos so I could run control logic on the PC. This can only done via the PC LINK. The data from the Zigbee module never makes it to the servo motor bus. So after some digging, I found a schematic for the CM-5 and found where to piggy back data onto the main PC link. The image below shows where I connected my wires. The TX from the Bluetooth module is attached to the logic level side of the RS232 level converter. The other wires are connected to the Zigbee pins as decribed by the reference above.


This defintiely at your own risk and may behave badly if you try to connect the wired PC link cable at the same time. But since I intend to only use the Bluetooth serial connection, this was not a concern for me.

Now, I can run the included software such as Motion Builder using the Bluetooth connection as if I had the wired PC Link cable attached. Great! The CM-5 provides some commands such that if you open up a ternimal window to the serial port, you can get/set the data for each servo manually. However, the human readable commands use A LOT of bandwidth overhead. Given that the 57600 baud connection is already runnning much slower than the 1000000 native baud rate of the Dynamixel AX-12 servo motors, trying to control the robot via these commands was unbearably slow even if executed programmatically and I kept running into buffer limits on more complex commands.

A not-very-well documented mode of the CM-5 is "Toss Mode" which appears to be a pass through mode to the servo motor bus. Put the CM-5 in Manage Mode, and hit the Start button. In your PC's terminal window, type "t" then hit enter. It should respond with "Toss Mode". At this point, any bytes sent via the serial connection is pushed directly onto the servo motor bus and vice versa. Finally! Exactly what I wanted. After slowly making my way through the Dynamixel AX-12 User's guide, I now have a small C# library that provides direct control/communication with the servos via the serial port. It's still pretty rough but once I clean it up a bit more, I'll probably make it available for download. But, it is a farily straight forward implementation of key commands from the Dynamixel users manual. The hard part was getting the hardware into the right configuration to allow direct communication.

The next step to do is write my own control and logic software to see if I can make it do more interesting things than simply recall preset poses. There's also a mild annoyance in that the 57600 baud serial link is about 17x slower than the 1000000 baud servo bus speed. If this becomes an issue, I might explore making an alternative controller board that would provide 1000000 baud pass through, or even put each limb on a separate bus to parallelize I/O making it even faster. This could result in a 70x speed bump in servo communication which would be helpful with real-time control logic.

(update 4-22-09) It looks like Scott Ferguson has C# libraries for controlling a dynamixel directly via a serial port. He was using a USB2Dynamixel adapter. The bad this is that it doesn't provide power to the servo, only control. So, using the CM-5 a wirelss control/power brick is still fairly attractive.

Adventures with Bioloid

A couple of weeks ago, I was participating in the Siggraph Jury review process looking at some of the projects submitted this year. There were a couple of submissions using humanoid servo motor robots. Since I have always had an itch to play with robots that I've never had a chance to scratch, I decided to look into buying one. One of the best selections of these robots I found online was at Trossen Robotics. After a lot of reading and video watching, the current highest rated robots appear to be the Robonova, Kondo KHR-2HV, Futaba RBT-1, and the edutainment Robotis Bioloid. These are all very impressive robots that all (with the exception of the Bioloid) are used in the RoboCup Soccer competitions. Combined with the $900-$1500 price tags, these are definitely not your typical kids toy.

After much deliberation, I ended up going with the Bioloid. It's one of the more well documented robots with a healthy developer community, and it's highly reconfigurable. It comes with an "errector set"-like kit which allows you to build a variety of robots, not just humanoids. However, this modularity comes at the cost of extra weight. So, while the power-to-weight ratio of the servo motors maybe comparable to the higher-end robots, the overall performance of the robot is noticeably slower and clunkier. It also happens to be one of the cheaper robots at$900. I really liked the re-configurability (for future robot projects), the number of degrees of freedom (particularly in the hip), and the size of the community support/English documentation.


When I first got it, I was a little intimidated by the number of pieces in the box. Being an educational robot, I was hoping it was going to be a quick and simple setup. While the instructions are fairly easy to follow, it did take me about 5 hours from opening the box to a completed robot. Assembly requires handing many similar looking parts and lots of tiny screws. However, it is very satisfying to see the robot slowly take form as you assemble the components.


Once it is done, you do get an urge to say out loud "IT'S ALIVE!" with a grin on your face.


The included CD does have software to program and contol the robot, but as I expected, it is somewhat limited to keyframe pose playback or simplfied visual programming. My original intent was to run the robot using my own C/C++ or C# program. So, I didn't spend much time with the included software other than to verify the robot worked and to get an understanding of the control flow. The C development tools described by the documentation are for writing programs that run on the Atmega128 chip inside the robot. What I wanted was to run the control logic on my PC. However, getting my own software to control the robot ended up being quite a bit more challenging than I had expected.

The first major hurdle I had was the physical connection. The kit comes with a serial cable for communication with the robot, but it uses a DB-9 connector that is only found on desktops these days and my main machine is a laptop. The Bioloid has an expansion slot on its control board, the CM-5, for a wireless Zigbee connection. There are a few resources online explaining how to use a Bluetooh Module instead of a Zigbee module. So, I had ordered a BlueSMIRF module (WRL-08332) from Sparkfun in anticipation of doing this.

The Bioloid controller requires 57600 baud serial communication, but the Bluetooth modules typically come set to 9600 baud. To my frustration, the information on Sparkfun's website on exactly how to re-configure the baud rate is a little obtuse. They have different chipset versions with different command sets. Something I burned about 2 hours learning was that newer modules, with the BGB203 chip, CANNOT be configured wirelessly over the Bluetooth connection. They have to be configured via the wired TTL TX/RX connections. Moreover, to change the baud rate and save it to memory requires a TTL connection that can dynamically change its baud rate to issue the "save to memory" command at the new baud rate. My short lived attempt at trying to using a second Bluetooth module was a failure because while it could issue the "change baud rate" command it could not issue the "save to memory" command. =oP Anyway, once I got my hands on a USB TTL-232 cable, things went smoothly. One other important thing to check is the Bluetooth passkey of the module (using the configuration commands). In Vista, to make the Bluetooth serial port binding behave nicely I had to configure the bluetooth connection to use the passkey. It happened to be set to "0000" on my module despite the documentation from Sparkfun indicating it would be "default".


The second problem I ran into was that once I connected the Bluetooth module to the Zigbee communication pins, I discovered that it is NOT A REPLACEMENT for to the PC LINK serial programming cable port at the top of the CM-5. The data from the Zigbee unit is only meant to provide command bytes triggering behaviors in a program running natively on the CM-5. What I wanted was raw access to the servos so I could run control logic on the PC. This can only done via the PC LINK. The data from the Zigbee module never makes it to the servo motor bus. So after some digging, I found a schematic for the CM-5 and found where to piggy back data onto the main PC link. The image below shows where I connected my wires. The TX from the Bluetooth module is attached to the logic level side of the RS232 level converter. The other wires are connected to the Zigbee pins as decribed by the reference above.


This defintiely at your own risk and may behave badly if you try to connect the wired PC link cable at the same time. But since I intend to only use the Bluetooth serial connection, this was not a concern for me.

Now, I can run the included software such as Motion Builder using the Bluetooth connection as if I had the wired PC Link cable attached. Great! The CM-5 provides some commands such that if you open up a ternimal window to the serial port, you can get/set the data for each servo manually. However, the human readable commands use A LOT of bandwidth overhead. Given that the 57600 baud connection is already runnning much slower than the 1000000 native baud rate of the Dynamixel AX-12 servo motors, trying to control the robot via these commands was unbearably slow even if executed programmatically and I kept running into buffer limits on more complex commands.

A not-very-well documented mode of the CM-5 is "Toss Mode" which appears to be a pass through mode to the servo motor bus. Put the CM-5 in Manage Mode, and hit the Start button. In your PC's terminal window, type "t" then hit enter. It should respond with "Toss Mode". At this point, any bytes sent via the serial connection is pushed directly onto the servo motor bus and vice versa. Finally! Exactly what I wanted. After slowly making my way through the Dynamixel AX-12 User's guide, I now have a small C# library that provides direct control/communication with the servos via the serial port. It's still pretty rough but once I clean it up a bit more, I'll probably make it available for download. But, it is a farily straight forward implementation of key commands from the Dynamixel users manual. The hard part was getting the hardware into the right configuration to allow direct communication.

The next step to do is write my own control and logic software to see if I can make it do more interesting things than simply recall preset poses. There's also a mild annoyance in that the 57600 baud serial link is about 17x slower than the 1000000 baud servo bus speed. If this becomes an issue, I might explore making an alternative controller board that would provide 1000000 baud pass through, or even put each limb on a separate bus to parallelize I/O making it even faster. This could result in a 70x speed bump in servo communication which would be helpful with real-time control logic.

(update 4-22-09) It looks like Scott Ferguson has C# libraries for controlling a dynamixel directly via a serial port. He was using a USB2Dynamixel adapter. The bad this is that it doesn't provide power to the servo, only control. So, using the CM-5 a wirelss control/power brick is still fairly attractive.