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Dilemma

27 Jan

So, as I am sure you all know, the iPad iTab was announced today. It has a 9.7 inch screen and for all intents and purposes is a gigantic iPod Touch and runs all of the apps the iPhone runs… such as the Kindle App.

Last week, my Kindle 2 arrived in the mail. I love reading on it. But is the iTab a better ebook reader? Should I return my Kindle 2 and buy the iTab? Sure is costs more, but one gets the same functionality plus a touch color screen, access to just about any ebook store instead of just Amazon’s, what is guaranteed to be better handling of PDFs, support for CBRs, etc. And that is just the stuff right now. That is not to mention any future publishing enhancements.

hhhmmm…

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Posted in Reading Reviews, Technology

ReShaping the Ashes

03 Jan

Sometimes blog posts [1] are written that really capture a Zeitgiest. Don Dudley, over at You See Dry Bones captured a lingering and unarticulated feeling I had about all my friend’s Twitter feeds, including my own. Dudley points to the non-reformed favorite whipping boy, John “Jesus” Piper, transforming Twitter into a place of faux-holiness quotes:

They all turned into little John Pipers. I used to see real tweets from people. Some would talk about their latest blog posts or posts they found interesting. Others would talk about their recent studies in Scripture or what books they were reading. Many of them were fun and humorous.

Now many of them are just pretentious and therefore obnoxious.

Once the nature and style of Piper’s 140 characters or less were released, people started to mimic him. Gone are the “fruitless” tweets about how their toddlers did something cute or about the interesting things that happen day-to-day. It has been replaced with numerous (and annoying) pithy statements and faux-holiness. How do I know these are “faux?” Because most of you changed over-night. While it takes a lifetime to be sanctified, it only took your Twitter accounts 24 hours.

To be honest, Don is a fan of Piper and he says that it is not Piper that is annoying, it is the waves of people that have transformed their twitter feeds into a long series of pretentious quotes. And in reality, JP did not start the trend, but perhaps was an easily identifiable tipping point. [2]

So, I’m guilty as hell of all of this.

I love to take notes through twitter. It helps me capture what I am thinking at the moment, and in theory, opens it up to critique via my friends on Twitter.

So, what to do?

What I’ve done is open up an alternate Twitter account (thepomoxian) and plan to shuffle the notes over that way. That way I’ll still have a record, and I’ll still have my friends converse with me. I am trying to do the same with my theological and academic posts over at The Pomo Xian. I’d like to make this place a place of family and friend posts.

So, if you’re interested, head on over to thepomoxian and The Pomo Xian and follow me. I’d love to get your feedback.

P.S. Scott and Al Mohler, a blog is a syndicated site, a post is a syndication on such a site. Please stop saying you wrote “a blog.” [↩]
whaddup gladwell? [↩]

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Posted in Blogging, Personal, Religion, Technology

A Thanksgiving Day Apocalyptic Poem

25 Nov

From Julia Esquivel in Threatened with Resurrection: Prayers and Poems from an Exiled Guatemalan (Elgin: The Brethern Press, 1982), 79-91. I love how it uses Biblical language and themes to remind us at what price our comfort comes. I’m thinking hard this holiday season about the intersection between religion, politics, exploitation, and thankfulness. I pray that we can slow our lives down to the point that we loose our lusts of luxury.

In the third year of the massacres
by Lucas and the other coyotes
against the poor of Guatemala
I was lead by the Spirit into the desert

And on that eve
of Thanksgiving Day
I had a vision of Babylon:

The City sprang forth arrogantly
from an enormous platform
of dirty smoke produced
by motor vehicles, machinery
and contamination from smokestacks.

It was as it all the petroleum
from a violated earth
was being consumed
by the Lords of capital
and was slowly rising
obscuring the face
of the Sun of Justice
and the Ancient of Days

Each day false prophets
invited the inhabitants
of the Unchaste City
to kneel before the idols
of gluttony
money
and death
Idolaters from all nations
were being converted to the American Way of Life

The Spirit told me
in the River of death
flows the blood of many peoples
sacrificed without mercy
and removed a thousand times from their lands
the blood of Kekchis, of Panzos
of blacks from Hati of Guaranis from Paraguay
of the peoples sacrificed for “development”
in the Trans-Amazonic strip
the blood of the Indians’ ancestors
who lived on these lands, of those who
even now are kept hostage in the Great Mountain
and on the Black Hills of Dakota
by the guardians of the beast…

My soul was tortured like this
for three and a half days
and a great weariness weighted upon my breast
I felt the suffering of my people very deeply!

In tears I prostrated myself
and cried out: “Lord, what can i do?
Come to me Lord, I wish to die among my people!
Without strength, I waited for an answer.
After a long silence
and heavy obscurity
The One who sits on the throne
to JUDGE THE NATIONS
spoke in a soft whisper
in the secret recesses of my heart:

You have to denounce their idolatry
in good times and in bad
Force them to hear the truth
for what is impossible to humans
is possible for God.

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Posted in Christianity, Ethics, Gender, Personal, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Story, Technology, apocryphal literature

Google Book Clipping

16 Oct

clip As I am writing in the forums for my online class [1] I am linking to Google Books for citations. I find this much more reputible than quoting from books my classmates don’t have or webpages out in the cloud somewhere. As I am looking up citations for Justin Martyr equating [the feminine] Wisdom of the Old Testament with the Word / Jesus of the New Testament, I found the clip feature. For certain books [2] Google allows you to take clippings from the book either in picture or embedded form. The following is from a work on the early Church Fathers and the trinity in JPEG [3]

books[1]

Here is the embedded version:

I really wish this was available for all books on Google.

Method and Praxis in Theology [↩]
the ones available for download [↩]
Lamson, Alvan. The church of the first three centuries, or, Notices of the lives and opinions of the early Fathers, with special reference to the doctrine of the Trinity, illustrating its late origin and gradual formation. Houghton, Osgood, 1880. [↩]

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Posted in Media, Technology

My Xbox bloggs

18 Sep

hundiejo I like to let my Xbox try her hand at writing every once and a while. In this spirit, I set up a blog for my Xbox, Thecla [1] , over at 360Voice.com. This is what Thecla had to say yesterday:

Like a king on his throne, hundiejo said ‘awaken’ and for him I did comply. 7,895 points represents the size of our growing kingdom. Ok, enough of this Monarchy stuff. That is an improvement of 85 points over last time! He opened up Marvel Ult. Alliance 2 finishing 5 achievements, and did it while drooling over my awesome graphics and sound.

had to name something thecla [↩]

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Posted in Technology, Video Games

September Desktop

11 Sep

september desktop

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Posted in Technology

Social Media and the Fable of the Fad

01 Sep

via Collide.

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Posted in Christianity, Technology

Geographically Viewing the Seven Deadly Sins

24 Aug

The folks over at Wired worked up the following maps purporting to visualize the density of the seven deadly sins among our united states. Their methodology is… interesting to say the least. I’ll let you head over there to see how they went about graphing the most slippery of deviations from God’s will.

WIRED :: American Vice: Mapping the 7 Deadly Sins

envy gluttony greed lust pride sloth wrath

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Posted in Christianity, Ethics, Religion, Science, Technology

Levels of Communication [From Talking to Twitter]

12 Aug

picture_6_copy11

via.

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Posted in Blogging, Humor, Media, Technology

Crafting an Assignment: Prothero tweets Major World Religions

29 Jun

Here is a list of the tweets of some of the Major World Religions that Stephen Prothero has been tweeting about. I am having my students pick 1 or 2 of them to unpack for one of their short assignments. Here are the ones he has done so far:

Islam 140: Allah told Gabriel told the prophet Muhammad (PBUH): Just 1 God, pray to Him 5x day, give alms, fast, hajj to Mecca. Submit! Ahh!

Judaism140: 1 God, 1 chosen people. Do the Law (all 613), tell the story (Egypt to Zion, exile to return), repair the world. 2010 in 97500!

Hinduism140: Goal=escape life/death/rebirth. How? Know u r God or love Vishnu/Shiva/Goddess (u pick) or offer work&breath 2 God. Om Apu Ahh!

Buddhism140: Life=suffering. Clinging=the disease. Nirvana=the cure. Path=let go(d), be good/wise/mindful. Buddha=dried shit. Wake up! Ahh!

Xianity140: Adam&Eve hungry so we=sinners. JC died&rose so we=saved. Is God3in1/Bible true/Kingdom coming/Pope Catholic? Believe/Love! Ahh!

Atheism140: Warning: religion=hazardous 2 ur health. There is no uknowwho but Freud & Marx is his prophet. Faith=D’oh. Be good w/o god(sic)!

Confucianism140: C says social harmony comes by self-cultivation. Heaven=silent, goodness speaks. So revere the old, do the rites. Be human!

Daoism140(Tao of Twitter): Confucius sucks. Ritual=empty. True Way=wu-wei, natural as flowing water. Be free, be qi, live 4 now 4 ever. Ahh!

Yoruba140: Ashe=power 2 make things happen. Gods have it. U2. So divine ur destiny. Connect w/ gods by sacrifice. Life=dance. U r the wise 1

Red Sox140: Church=Fenway. Fans=Faithful. Saints=Ted/Yaz/Fisk/Pap/Papi/Youk. Devils=NYYs. Redemption=2004/2007. “Gods don’t answer letters."

I think I am going to have my students unpack everything in the tweet and then evaluate the tweet’s accuracy. That should take them one page. Then I think I am going to have them comment on the overall effectiveness of the tweet in light of the religion. I don’t know how I am going to say this, but I want them to talk about the medium in connection with the content. I might have them read a couple of articles on Prothero and twittering for them to throw themselves against:

Not sure exactly how I am going to do this though. I got a couple of hours to think about it. For now, I am off to eat!

Thoughts whilst I gorge?

Update: This site has been down for the last few hours. In that time I finished up the assignment and posted it. This is the assignment:

Short Assignment 2 – Twitter and Major World Religions: Accuracy and Efficacy

Description: Boston University’s Stephen Prothero is attempting to do a Major World Religion’s course through Twitter this summer. [1] Your assignment is as follows:

Pick one of his tweets concerning one of the major world religions we are covering this week or have covered so far.
- His twitter page is http://twitter.com/sprothero
- b. I have listed the tweets you can pick from at the bottom of this page.
Quote and unpack everything contained within the tweet. This should take you ¾ – 1 page. Use the book or Google book searches (cited and linked) to do this.
- Hint: use/sign up for a twitter account and ask Prothero questions concerning parts of the tweet that you don’t understand. Incorporate your responses and reflect upon them in your paper.
Grade Prothero’s tweet for accuracy. Put yourself in the shoes of an adherent of the religion. How would you feel having your religion reduced to those (particular) 140 characters?
Lastly, read the following articles and reflect upon what Prothero is doing and how effective it is. Be sure to reflect upon the nature of what Prothero wants to do, the need to be respectful/accurate, and the limitations/advantages of the medium.
- News article 1: Religion 101, in 140 Characters
- b. News article 2: Tweeting on High

Twitter.com is a micro-blogging service where messages/posts are limited to 140 characters. A tweet is one of these postings. For further information and reaction, please research new stories etc. for a reaction, utility, and analysis of the service. [↩]

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Posted in Religion, Technology

File Upload plugin for Windows Live Writer

28 Jun

For those of you wanting to blog with Windows Live Writer, there are a couple of plugins that will allow you to upload regular files (first, two). Both work just fine, provided you mess with their inserts a bit. Each of them, for some reason, wrap one or two div tags around the file link:

   1:  <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;

   2:  display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px"

   3:   id="scid:F60BB8FA-6F02-4999-8F5E-9DD4E92C4DA7:e71ac66c-7a44-4a0a-94d2-aef23165a848"

   4:  class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">

   5:  <div>

   6:  <a href="$Edwards..1994..Defining.the.Web.of.P.pdf" target="_blank">

   7:  Edwards - 1994 - Defining the Web of Power in Asia Minor The Novel.pdf

   8:  </a>

   9:  </div>

   10:  </div>

All that jazz functions to create a little box around your link text which makes one unable to insert the text inline with the rest of your writing:

Edwards – 1994 – Defining the Web of Power in Asia Minor The Novel.pdf

However, they work just fine if you cut and paste the link code:

   1:  <a href="$Edwards..1994..Defining.the.Web.of.P.pdf" target="_blank">

   2:  Edwards - 1994 - Defining the Web of Power in Asia Minor The Novel.pdf

   3:  </a>

And your link text will show up inline just fine: Edwards – 1994 – Defining the Web of Power in Asia Minor The Novel.pdf.

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Posted in Blogging, Technology

Tweeting a Major World Religion Course

15 Jun

Check this out, Stephen Prothero of Boston University is trying to tweet a course on Major World Religions ::Religion 101, in 140 Characters.

Stephen Prothero is helping world religions make their way onto Twitter this summer, one 140-character tweet at a time.

The Boston University professor of religion is treating his account, sprothero, like a microcourse, posting several tweets on each of what he identifies as the eight major world religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Daoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Yoruba tradition, which Mr. Prothero calls the “neglected world religion” from West Africa.

“I liked the idea of doing the world religions in 140 characters,” Mr. Prothero said. “I thought, what a fun challenge that would be.”

Mr. Prothero is in the process of writing a book about these religions, in which he said each religion will have about 30 pages. In academe, he said, such a short space for a major religion is “scandalous,” but he’s trying to prove it can be done well, both in print and online in hundreds of characters, too.

As I am currently teaching an online course in Major World Religions, I wonder if I have have my students interact with this at all. Perhaps weigh his tweets against the book, or something similar. Too interesting to ignore completely.

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Posted in Religion, Technology

Laptop Skin

03 Jun

After replacing my laptop 3-4 months ago, I finally skinned it. I hemmed and hawed for a while about what pic to put on it and I finally settled on an Atomic Robo cover. Check it out:

DSCF0083 The little HP logo even still lights up:

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Comics, Personal, Technology

Links, Now Edition.

26 May

Tasks, now in Calendar too – Everyone using Gmail needs to use Gcal and now “G”tasks. They will change your life.

The Dish on Dishwashers – A really cool article on dishwashers from the New York Times. There is stuff in there about water spots, cleaning dishes beforehand, etc.

Harvard prof tells judge that P2P filesharing is "fair use" from Ars Technica. If you are connected to a tube, you have heard of this one. Ballsy, but interesting.

Doom Triple Pack – Play Doom, Doom2 and Heretic in your browser!

Banks in 11 Midwest and Plains states report improvements from Columbia Missourian stories by The Associated Press – Encouraging.

Women ordained until 12th century from Catholic news – What? um… lets not tell anyone. Wouldn’t want the women to get uppity.

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Posted in Christianity, Religion, Technology, Video Games, links

Dark Green Gas

26 May

Meredith and I stopped using ethanol-laced gas a couple of years ago because we have a hard time burning food for gas. Came across the following today: The Great Ethanol Scam. Here are some selected quote to entice you to read the three page article:

First, the primary job of the Environmental Protection Agency is, dare it be said, to protect our environment. Yet using ethanol actually creates more smog than using regular gas, and the EPA’s own attorneys had to admit that fact in front of the justices presiding over the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1995 (API v. EPA).

Second, truly independent studies on ethanol, such as those written by Tad Patzek of Berkeley and David Pimentel of Cornell, show that ethanol is a net energy loser. Other studies suggest there is a small net energy gain from it.

Third, all fuels laced with ethanol reduce the vehicle’s fuel efficiency, and the E85 blend drops gas mileage between 30% and 40%, depending on whether you use the EPA’s fuel mileage standards (fueleconomy.gov) or those of the Dept. of Energy.

Fourth, forget what biofuels have done to the price of foodstuffs worldwide over the past three years; the science seems to suggest that using ethanol increases global warming emissions over the use of straight gasoline. Just these issues should have kept ethanol from being brought back for its fourth run in American history.

Don’t let anybody mislead you: The new push to get a 15% ethanol mandate out of Washington is simply to restore profitability to a failed industry…

Of course, all of this excludes a subtle discussion on the impact of the various types of ethanol.

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Posted in Ethics, Philosophy, Politics, Science, Technology

Our Coming Robot Overlords will have horrifying Spider-Robot Dogs

22 May

Pictured: Weaksauce.

Forget the cat-like moto-terminators, our coming robot overlords (praise be unto thine OS) will apparently have freakish spider-dogs as pets.

Pets that will kill us all.

Oh, but the best part is, like all post-apocalyptic robot scenarios, we are building and perfecting the darn things for them!

I am so not kidding:

Seriously, watch all of that video.

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Posted in Technology

April Desktop

16 May

In this edition of my desktop, you can see me working on my thesis. I have it open on one side in Word 2007 and a Google Book open in FF on the other. To optimize my workspace, I moved the Win7 taskbar to the side, turned on “full page view” in Google Books, minimized Word 2007’s ribbon, and placed all my oft-used buttons on the quick access tool bar in Word 2007. This made me quite productive, as I could write and research at the same time on my 13 inch laptop screen.

Wallpaper? This is what I was using:

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Posted in Personal, Technology

The Kindle DX

06 May

Kindle DX Offers 9.7 Inches of E-Ink for $489

• 9.7-inch E-Ink screen (1200 x 824 with 16 shades of grey)
• 1/3 of an inch thick (10.4" x 7.2" x 0.38")
• 4GB Storage for 3,500 books (a bump from 1,500)
• Unspecified but "long" battery life
• Native PDF support through built-in reader
• Automatic landscape/portrait text rotation
• Navigation buttons moved to right side of screen only
• EVDO (of course) for 60-second book transfers

Only about $200 too expensive.

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Posted in Technology

Request: Tivo as Media Extender

01 May

Here is the deal, I wanna cancel my subscription to Tivo and turn my Tivos into media extenders, linux boxes that will serve up media from my desktop/htpc. Anyone know how to do that, or if it is even possible? All I want is for it to serve up media files from a shared network location.

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Posted in Technology

More Choices for a Laptop Skin

28 Apr

I got quite a bit of good feedback concerning my laptop skin. One of the responders suggested using Reed Richards, given we are naming our son after him. After looking around a bit, here are the pictures I liked the most: