Eleven Days

It's been 11 days since my last confession ... er, ... post. There are lots of good reasons. I had a friend spend a week with me over Easter. It was good to re-connect and work on some stuff together (we plan to write a book together).

It's interesting to discover what you learn about yourself when you spend 10-12 hours a day for almost a week together with the same person. The first thing I discovered is that I am mostly an introvert. I like and I need to spend time alone. I get out of sorts if I don't. But I also realize that I'm at least partly an extrovert. If I spend too much time alone I get a bit squirrelly. (That does manifest itself in my Meyers-Briggs profile.)

My friend likes coffee. So do I and we drank a lot of it this week. The second thing I discovered is that I shouldn't really drink coffee all day long. I've come to realize that a couple of "grande bolds" from St. Arbucks is plenty of coffee for one day.

The third thing is that I like to do the research, intellectual pondering activity of discovering new ideas and finding out how they work. Translating that into action requires a bit more effort on my part. It's helpful to have someone who is different than I am to help me change gears. My friend approaches the world differently than I do. So does my wife.

I love books. I love buying new books. I like starting to read books. I have a hard time finishing most books. I've discovered most books would make good journal articles. If i could sort through all the stuff that doesn't belong in the journal article, I can read a book a day. I may have to rethink the "buying lots of books" thing.

Having lived with a theology professor all week I realize that on most days I'm still smarter than a fifth grader.

Where Has Your Money Been?

I was reading a housechurch blog today and came across this post. Very interesting. I wonder what the statistics would be in Canada??

In New Zealand On average, every $2 coin in your pocket has been through a poker machine six times in the past year.

The first data from a new $35 million electronic monitoring system, to be presented at a gambling conference in Auckland today, shows that people sank $2.4 billion into non-casino gambling machines in the past year.

Almost $900 million of this was in $2 coins - which was 6.7 times the total value of $2 coins in circulation.

New "Air"

Well I suppose I'm not completely back. I have allowed myself to step into the deep waters of computer maintenance and upgrades. MacWorld 2008 didn't help either. But more about that later.

The things you have to do to just get back up to speed. After picking up my laptop I needed to reinstall all my programs - which is time consuming in and of itself. But I also needed to try and remember all the programs that I had downloaded (mostly freeware) that I use on a regular basis. It is sometimes a long process where you suddenly realize that you used to use a particular program to do a certain activity - then you look for it online and download it.

I also ordered more RAM which came today and needed to be installed as well.

And now my son is actually thinking of buying a new laptop - which brings me back to MacWorld. Steve Jobs always presents a Keynote Address where he explains the new things they are releasing. Maybe it's only interesting to Mac geeks - but it is part of the Mac mystique and Apple really does push the technological envelope (pardon the pun - Steve Jobs pulled his latest thin laptop out of an envelop during his keynote).

In case you haven't heard or just don't follow the goings on in that parallel universe where all the planets are Apple shaped, the folks in Cupertino (Mac headquarters) have released a new thin laptop called the Macbook Air - already being dubbed the "Airbook." It really is thin and has a high "Wow" factor.



It's called the Air because there are no cables and the loading of programs is done wirelessly. It really is cool.



However I don't think that my son will get it. It doesn't have enough ummph for him (not enough ram or hard drive space).

I'm Back

I have my computer again - finally. (Do I need to apologize for not blogging?)

I know it shouldn't have taken that long but it did. Here's the story.

On Thursday (December 27th) I heard a high squeaking sound from my computer and the Powerpoint presentation I was looking at refused to load. I tried to fix permissions (equivalent to running a program to make sure your registry items are accurate in a Windows machine) but that took a really long time and didn't help. I realize now I should have stopped everything and tried to back up my recent work. I realized my last backup was a few months ago and I lost my emails, addresses, bookmarks and some of the work I had done. I lost some recent docs I had been working on and most disappointing was that I had lost all of the recent audio recording I had done with my daughter. I think I lost some photos and some songs but those were not significant and can be replaced (songs) or copied from my wife's computer - which has all our recent photographs.

On Friday, I took it to a friend of a friend to get it repaired. You know the drill - my friend (a Mac guru who I called on Thursday evening) said "I know someone who fixes Macs out of his home. He's a great guy and can do it real cheap!" My friend's friend told me it should be ready soon - maybe even this evening but Monday for sure! Wow! Great!

On Monday I found out that my friend's friend's Mac expert was out of town on vacation over Christmas and New Year. Tuesday was New Year's Day. Wednesday I went snowboarding with Jared. Thursday was busy so I called on Friday. The response? The hard drive they ordered hadn't come in yet. Monday I called again. It should be in today. On Tuesday they told me they were having difficulty finding the hard drive I wanted - shortages due to the Christmas season.

So Tuesday afternoon I picked it up and took it to CPUSED (or BeamEcho) the guys I originally was going to take it to. It was ready by Wednesday at lunchtime - and at a cost roughly the same as what the other guy would have charged me.

The lesson in all this ... ?

Backup! Backup! Backup!

And go with the guys you know will fix it fast and right.

Very Cool Stop Motion Film

OK, This one is just for fun.

Grumpy Neighbour

Maybe everyone has a neighbour like this. Either you have the neighbour who zooms by in their fast little car or you have the neighbour who is bugged by the guy who drives by. I have both on my street. No one however has gone to these lengths (to the lengths shown on this little video clip below).

The video is advertising a German lottery (I think). It's funny - even if you don't understand the German being spoken. If you can understand German, I'm sure you know someone who talks like this.

Mathematical Certainty?

This is kind of one of those chain emails that people send out with the annoying moralistic platitudes at the end. Well I removed most of the platitudes and kept the content - some interesting mathematical idiosyncrasies because we have a deci-numeral system (as opposed to binary - or some other system). Anyways be amazed.


Beauty of Maths!

1 x 8 + 1 = 9
12 x 8 + 2 = 98
123 x 8 + 3 = 987
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321


1 x 9 + 2 = 11
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111


9 x 9 + 7 = 88
98 x 9 + 6 = 888
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888

Brilliant, isn't it?

And look at this symmetry:

1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321

Now, take a look at this...

101% ? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?
Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%?
We have all been in situations where someone wants you to GIVE OVER 100%.
How about ACHIEVING 101%?
What equals 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help answer these questions:

If:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R- K
adds up to ...
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

And:
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
adds up to ...
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But:
A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
results in ...
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

THEN, look how far the love of God will take you:

L-O-V-E-O-F-G-O-D
will give you ...
12+15+22+5+15+6+7+15+4 = 101%

Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical "certainty" that:

While Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will
get you there, It's the Love of God that will put you over the top!

Meandering Again

A few things I got a hoot out of - either funny or interesting.

The first is someone's MSN log on name: "4 out of 5 dentists agree that 1 dentist will always disagree with the other 4 "

The second is on the Blogger Dashboard and it is the "To Do List" blog. There are some great ones including "things to do before I die" (pictured below) the "before getting pregnant" list (July 06), the "perfect husband" list (july 06) and the "stuff to do when I'm old" list (definitely tongue in cheek). Click on the picture to enlarge.



The third one is from my son's blog where he asked people on MSN to "say something inspirational" - it's called Surprise Me!

The fourth is a link from my son's blog as well to illegal signs in Toronto. Check it out here.

Another piece of interesting flotsam. If you think you have a hard time finding a parking spot in North America try Europe. Check it out here.

Tales of the "Interesting" and Weird

Two unrelated blogs that linked to one another gave me a chuckle this morning.

The "interesting" one is about the often unnecessary use of "quotation marks." The English language is funny and its rules are befuddling, even to those most deeply steeped in the intricacies of the dangling participle and the use of the subjunctive. However here is a blog which highlights the strange and wonderful (and mostly redundant) use of quotation marks. Check it out here.

The weird site has to do with that strange growth on the upper lip of certain gentlemen (and a few unfortunate women). I still have a mustache after all these years and my wife has never seen me without one. For a very proper look at mustaches of the nineteenth century check out this blog.

Garbage Trucks

A friend just sent me this email. It may be posted somewhere else. It may have an author. I don't know. I just liked it enough to pass it on.


How often do you let other people's nonsense change your mood? Do you let a bad driver, rude waiter, curt boss,
or an insensitive employee ruin your day? Unless you're the Terminator, for an instant you're probably set back on your heels. However, the mark of a successful person is how quickly she can get back her focus on what's important.

Sixteen years ago I learned this lesson. I learned it in the back of a New York City taxi cab. Here's what happened.

I hopped in a taxi, and we took off for Grand Central Station. We were driving in the right lane when, all of a sudden, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his breaks, skidded, and missed the other car's back end by just inches!

The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident, whipped his head around and he started yelling bad words at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was friendly. So, I said, "Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!"

And this is when my taxi driver told me what I now call, "The Law of the Garbage Truck."

Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And if you let them, they'll dump it on you. When someone wants to dump on you, don't take it personally. You just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. You'll be happy you did.

So this was it: The "Law of the Garbage Truck." I started thinking, how often do I let Garbage Trucks run right over me? And how often do I take their garbage and spread it to other people: at work, at home, on the streets? It was that day I said, "I'm not going to do it anymore."

I began to see garbage trucks. Like in the movie "The Sixth Sense," the little boy said, "I see Dead People." Well, now "I see Garbage Trucks." I see the load they're carrying. I see them coming to drop it off. And like my Taxi Driver, I don't make it a personal thing; I just smile, wave, wish them well, and I move on.

One of my favorite football players of all time, Walter Payton, did this every day on the football field. He would jump up as quickly as he hit the ground after being tackled. He never dwelled on a hit. Payton was ready to make the next play his best. Good leaders know they have to be ready for their next meeting.

Good parents know that they have to welcome their children home from school with hugs and kisses. Leaders and parents know that they have to be fully present, and at their best for the people they care about.

The bottom line is that successful people do not let Garbage Trucks take over their day. What about you? What would happen in your life, starting today, if you let more garbage trucks pass you by?

Here's my bet. You'll be happier.

Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so..
Love the people who treat you right.
Forget about the ones who don't.
Believe that everything happens for a reason.
If you get a chance , TAKE IT!
If it changes your life , LET IT!
Nobody said it would be easy...
They just promised it would be worth it!

Signs, Signs Everywhere a Sign

I came across a couple of interesting signs - partly by looking at the new blogger site that shows all the pictures being posted on Blogger as a slide show. I thought you might have a laugh.

Meandering Again

I’ve been wandering again. Just to let you know, none of this stuff is found by actually looking for it – usually someone sends me something or I come across it looking for something else.

1. My son sent me this first item. With both of us being Mac users (the system that doesn’t crash or give you these big embarrassing error messages) we thought it was quite funny that Coke would be foiled by a Windoze error. This picture was taken in Piccadilly Circus in London, England. For those of you unfamiliar with Windows error messages (i.e. Mac and Unix users) the caption reads “Coca Cola Media Player has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.” I hope Coke doesn’t use a Windows machine to control the mixture of their soft drink ingredients.

2. A lot of filming for movies happens in Toronto. It’s actually fun catching glimpses of the Toronto skyline or well-known landmarks (well-known to Torontonians) in various movies. They are filming the second Incredible Hulk movie in Toronto and one of the super special effects scenes was filmed on Yonge Street right outside of Evergreen where I used to work. They are trying to transform the building into a mission in Harlem (New York City) instead of a mission in Toronto. Both of these photos do capture a bit of the New York feel but I admit it is more effective at night. You’ll also notice in some of the other pictures on the linked site that they did quite a bit of work in trying to recreate the Apollo Theatre. There are a number of shots of the “carnage” wreaked by the Hulk here and here and here. I found these because my son happened to be walking by there on Sunday evening and caught some of the action.

3.Maybe it’s just me, but is anyone else out there as completely baffled as I am by the idol worship of film stars? We just went through a couple of weeks of the Toronto Film Festival and people were lining up for hours or pressing their noses against the glass of local restaurants just to catch a glimpse of someone they might have seen in a movie somewhere. Does this make any sense to you? A few more images here.

4. I was looking for the source of the quote “90% of life is just showing up” and I found a couple of sites that help you out if you need to figure out who first said that quotable quote. This page gives you links to a whole bunch of quote sites. This one lets you ask others on an online forum where that quote came from. They seem to know their stuff. That quote above? Aparently it came from Woody Allen who actually said “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”

5. Finally, this was one of those web ads that shows up at the side of the Clustermaps site that you can click on at the left side of my blog. It just seemed too interesting not to click. Someone is building the world’s largest cross in Nazareth, Palestine.

"The Nazareth Cross Project aims to build the world’s largest and most impressive cross, standing at 60 meters tall, housing a magnificent church in its center. The cross will be decorated by some 7.2 million brilliant mosaic tiles of varying sizes, each one with a personal engraving. These tiles will be made of stone from Nazareth,
or platinum, silver or gold. The breathtaking Church with its panoramic view will be located at the intersection of the arms of the cross, 15 stories high, and will contain over 400 m2 of floor space. In the 8000 m2 surrounding this monumental cross,
a visitor center will be built to offer a unique inspirational experience as well as a world-class educational and leisure center. The central location of the church together with a circular monorail transportation system will provide pilgrims easy access to and from the historic Christian churches, the Fountain of Mary and the city’s central bazaars."

As a house church guy, this just seems silly – but maybe I’m just biased.

NEOLOGISM (Reinvented Word Definitions)

Yesterday I was reading some blog some where and I came across the term for the smallest measure of time known to science. It's called the "Honkosecond" and it is defined as: The time between when the traffic light changes and the person behind you honks his horn. This made me think of other wacky definitions and that the Washington Post has sponsored an annual Neologism contest. The current contest is here.

Someone once sent me a summary of contest winners and they are hilarious and worthy of posting.

Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. The winning definitions are:

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained

3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach .

4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation whilst drunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.

6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absent-mindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question in an exam.

12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), the belief that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Or you might like ...

DEFINITIONS FOR THE MEDICALLY-CHALLENGED

Artery: The study of paintings
Barium: What Doctors do when patients die
Caesarian Section: A neighbourhood in Rome
Cauterize: Made eye contact with her
Colic: A sick sheep dog
D & C: Where Washington is located
Dilate: To live long
Enema: Not a friend
Fibula: A small lie
G.I. Series: Military baseball game playoffs
Impotent: Distinguished, well known
Labour Pain: Getting hurt at work
Morbid: A higher offer
Nitrates: Cheaper than day rates
Node: Was aware of
Outpatient: A person who has fainted
Pap Smear: Fatherhood test
Post-operative: Letter carrier
Recovery Room: Place to do upholstery
Seizure: Roman Emperor
Tablet: Small Table
Terminal Illness: Getting sick at the airport
Urine: Opposite of "you're out"

Tales of the Weird

OK. Here's some news from the weird side. First of all there is this fairly new virtual world called Second Life where you create a virtual life for yourself online in a "parallel universe." The problem is that it sounds worse than this one. Yes there are some benefits. You can fly. You can't feel pain and you can turn it off if you want too. But it seems very much like our world with all the problems magnified. A few quotes:
Second Life, a three-dimensional world built by hundreds of thousands of users over the Internet, is also being used for education, meetings, marketing and more obvious game playing. It’s a wide world with a lot going on, in multiple languages, and it can be real-life enhancing for populations who are isolated for physical, mental, or geographic reasons. But as a petri dish for examining what makes many of us tick, Second Life reveals just how deep-seated the drive is to fit in, look good and get ahead in a material world.

“Why can’t we break away from a consumerist, appearance-oriented culture?” said Nick Yee, who has studied the sociology of virtual worlds and recently received a doctorate in communication from Stanford. “What does Second Life say about us, that we trade our consumerist-oriented culture for one that’s even worse?” The rest of the story is in the New York Times business section.

The second story is about street kids with a twist. A weird cult of the Mormon Church has been excommunicating teenaged boys because of their, well ... teenaged boy behaviour - like watching movies and looking at girls. However the real reason is that there are too many men in a community that averages 3 or 4 wives per man. They have started a ministry to these street kids of a different stripe because the number is running into the hundreds. The New York Times again gives the the rest of the story.

The Link of All Links

o.k., OK, OKAY!
And I thought my list of link and blogs and websites was getting long. How wrong could I be?

Now if you REALLY want to find a Christian site, or articles about an author, or reviews or something on Church History, or the prophetic or literally whatever, you need to go check out "Sites Unseen" or better known as Zoecarnate. This site needs to be bookmarked.

They bill themselves as "Earth's Mightiest Alternative Christian Link Portal" and "The best Jesus-infused sites you never knew about." The Dallas Morning News did a write up on them saying: "Here is an exhaustive roundup of Christian sites...The emphasis is on "alternative" Christian resources. There are enough surprises to draw you in and keep you engaged for hours." Hours? How about years!

Longing

I experienced longing again today as I was down by the lake. It reminded me of an article I wrote about 5 years ago - so I thought I'd post it for you all. Here goes ...

It happened just before Christmas. It happened to me as I looked at the 30 or 40 people, talking and laughing, clustered together in my kitchen/family room - seeing neighbours and church members becoming my friends. Something happened that night to ignite my imagination. It could actually happen anytime. It might be happening all the time. It may have happened to you this morning as you glanced out your bedroom window or as you stepped out your front door. For some, it may not have happened for a very long time - maybe not since you were very young, for it tends to happen more often when you are young. Sometimes we forget how it happens.

For me it happens as the snow begins to lightly fall on a cold still night. It happens when I lie on my back to look at the stars on a clear night. It happens when I watch a favorite movie. It happens when I think about my childhood and the innocence of being a little boy. It happens when I watch children playing, or hold a baby, or spend time with an old friend. It happens in springtime when the first warm day hits and I can smell things growing. It happens when I see the trees first begin to change colour in autumn. It happens when I hear an old song on the radio. It happens when I watch big fluffy clouds float by on a warm sunny day. It happens when I see an old man sitting by himself at a table in the mall. It happens when I stand on the top of a big hill or mountain and can look around for miles. It happens in church when I worship. It happens when I think about my calling. It happens when I walk my neighbourhood. Sometimes it just sneaks up on me and overwhelms me with the force of its power and I'm left shaken. Other times it just slowly builds until I know it's there but can't quite put my finger on it.

Looking east from the end of my driveway - late August at around 6:30am

What happens is … longing - longing that ignites the imagination into dreaming what might be. It's that bittersweet ache at the very centre of your being - that desire for something more, something you can't quite put your finger on but that you hope against hope might be true. It is a longing … for beauty, fullness, purpose, adventure, belonging, love … longing for something that is just beyond the edges of your consciousness. It is a longing for the eternal - for the best in life, for heaven, for God. I believe that longing is something spiritual put in our hearts by our Creator. It is at its core, a longing for the eternal. It's called desire, zeal, passion. Those who experience it are often called incurable romantics, dreamers or visionaries. Sometimes the Bible calls it thirst or hunger. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." We can't live without it. We cannot be human without it. God has placed it in our hearts.

John Gaynor Banks says it this way: "Desire is a mighty force, one of your most divine attributes … see the God-like quality of desire! For it is part of the Atomic Energy of the soul. The kingdom of heaven within you is operated by desire. Do not quench it or crush it … rather offer it to God." Psalm 37:4 says: "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Desire is very individual. It is given to us to guide our way, to find our purpose in life, to discover our calling, our destiny. This deep desire in our hearts for eternal things is placed there by God. Think about it. We are not fully satisfied when we achieve merely earthly goals. We are left longing for more, something eternal.

Fundamentally, this longing is consummated in our worship of the eternal - our worship of God. John Eldridge writes: "Our hearts live for an experience of worship that fills our being with a joy that is so deeply in awe of the Other that we are barely aware of ourselves. God is the wellspring of anything that has ever romanced your heart - the thundering strength of a waterfall, the delicacy of a flower, the stirring capacity of music, the richness of the best food, the depths of true love."

C.S. Lewis adds: "When we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak."

Unfortunately most of us never really allow this longing to do its work in us. We’ve been falsely taught that holiness is niceness, contentment means eliminating passion and to actually admit to being dry, thirsty, longing for more is unspiritual or psychologically unsound. We’ve pushed away desire, afraid that it might be lust, not making the effort to discern the difference. Rarely, if ever, does deep desire find expression in our worship services, or even in our prayers. Afraid of being disappointed, we push down the majestic desires and God-inspired dreams of our lives, not allowing ourselves to hope. Instead, we settle for manageable goals, measurable outcomes, diluted passion and safe dreams. We accept bland lives, dead-end jobs, comfortable church, and the tyranny of the urgent. We've been bought off by the promise of a comfortable life and settle for the shadows of real excitement through television. We sell our birthright for a little bit of pleasure and some peace and quiet. We've learned to reduce our desire to a more manageable size. The chilling danger is that the soul should persuade itself that it is not hungry. But let's be honest about what we've done and call it what it is ... sin.

If it is sin, we must repent and open our lives to the adventure God has in store for us. We must open our hearts and be vulnerable. We must live in such a way that we risk disappointment and pray for the impossible. Someone once said that there is no prayer that after having prayed it God did not wish it were bigger.

Are you hungry for a deeper intimacy with the Creator of your heart? Do you long for your community to be different? Does your heart go out to your neighbours? Do you long for them to encounter God’s best? Do you thirst for the kingdom? Do you hunger for the eternal? He made us that way.

I have a longing for more … more of God, more of His Kingdom, more of the eternal, more of the transforming power of His Spirit … changing my life and the lives of the people who I meet on my street every day.

Wikipedia's Underbelly

A couple of things caught my attention the past couple of days.

The first one was an article about how Wikipedia is edited. (A brief comment about Wikipedia from their site: Wikipedia is a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world. Almost all its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet, simply by clicking the edit this page link.) It turns out that people editing the articles on Wikipedia have been expressing their vested interests by slanting stories in their favour. This was discovered because a guy named Virgil Griffith came up with a computer program that reveals who edits these articles, via a system where it scans the I.P address and cross-references it with the I.P. directory (i.e. it shows you who made the edit – or at which computer the edit was made).

So we have large companies slanting information in favour of their product and against the product of its competitor. For example:
- Microsoft tried to cover up the XBOX 360 failure rate
- Apple edit Microsoft entries, adding more negative comments about its rival
- Microsoft then edits Apple entries, adding more negative comments about its rival
- Exxon Mobil edits spillages and eco-system destruction from oil spillages article
- Scientology removes criticism and negatives article from Scientology page
- Amnesty International removes negative comments
- Dell Computers deletes negative comments on customer services and removes a passage how the company outsources work to third world countries
- EA Games deletes whole paragraphs of criticism about employment practices and business methods
- Fox News removes all controversial topics against the network from the Fox News page
- News of the World deletes a number of criticism against the paper
- Nestle removes negative comments on its business practices from its page

This is significant because Wikipedia is so widely used. Many college programs restrict or prohibit the use of internet research because of these issues. It has caused a bit of a stink.

The second thing is on the next post.

Virtual Pastors

This is different. Virtual Pastors ... Hmmm.

"We have the technology" (remember the TV show The Six Million Dollar Man?) Well now we have The Virtual Preacher Man. You've heard of search committees looking for pastors for a church. Well with this concept you can keep changing your pastor every week. There is a company that has developed virtual pastors - computer generated characters that preach (from sermons on the internet) and tell jokes and have various life experiences that they share with their congregation. The congregation gives electronic feedback after every sermon to further refine the personality and style of their "pastor."


Does this remind anyone of Max Headroom?

This is hilarious - it sounds like many of us may be out of a job. Read the rest of the story here.

Wow!

I found this image at this blog along with some of the comments. If you look at the photo you can see stars (the rounder images with a "twinkle" or "aura" around them) and you cans easily count at least 30 galaxies (the more elongated images). However the caption states that about 1,500 galaxies !!! are visible in this deep view of the universe. This image was captured by allowing the Hubble Space Telescope to stare at the same tiny patch of sky for 10 consecutive days in 1995. The image covers an area of sky only about width of a dime viewed from 75 feet away.


How small are we? (Or how big is God?)

Cosmologists now conservatively theorize this:

Think of an atom that we will call "A"

Think of the observable universe - all that we can see and observe with the instruments we have today including Hubble (13+ Billion Light-years in any direction). We'll call that "O"

Now we'll call the possible size of all of creation beyond what we can see and we'll call that "C"

And consider this: A is to O as O is to C.

The Atom is to the Observable Universe as the Observable Universe is to all of Creation.

Which means that all we can currently observe of the universe is like an atom compared to what might be out there.

My brain hurts.

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For all those who have been frustrated with computers or frustrated with helping others use their computers.
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