Published on
March 15, 2006 in
Religion.
Perhaps Seth Godin listens to Fresh Air as well, he referenced something from a recent show with Paul Motian who spoke about that event where Bill Evans said “I don’t feel like playing tonight.” If I remember correctly (as Kaga from the Iron Chef would say), Paul thought that Bill wanted to leave because he didn’t have his heroine fix earlier that day. The point, however, remains that people appreciate honesty even when it is honestly disappointing.
Churches, especially large and established church in upscale professional areas of town, need to be careful that honesty is not covered by fashionable facades. That is a huge temptation. We live in communities built by marketers. So many details of our lives were made by people who were more interested in looks than in plain good function that we hardly notice it.
The problem is that this marketing creates false fronts and become whitewashed ossuaries filled with dead, meatless bones (yes it is gross, but I wanted to push a bit on the illustration). We repeat the follies of the pharisees.
Continue reading ‘Refreshing Authenticity’
I clicked on the Google Logo because it looked interesting today and was pleasantly surprised to find Google Mars (as opposed to Googling the other Mars).
Lots of cool information is available at the top of the page and the search feature returns pins and notes about martian features.
I found more info at the Google Blog under Mars Attracts
Published on
March 12, 2006 in
Techie.
EyeOS is an online web based “Operating System” type service.
It is a browser based Graphical User Interface (GUI) with web based applications, basically just a desktop type system. Microsoft and Google are supposedly coming out with something like this in the future, but this is here now with something much better. It is open source and free to install on your own box.
I registered for an eyeOS account (supported by Google Adwords) and tried it out. You can demo without signing up by going here.
It is not going to replace traditional desktop environments any time soon, but I can see some use in it for traveling or even for giving employees or students a traveling desktop they can access on LAN or online. It will be more usable when the technology matures a little more.
Unlike Google or Microsoft, they have enabled users to create new applications and contribute them back into the community.
I have been involved with web hosting for several years and I was joking with someone about how it seemed as though someone people just wanted the web server to do all the work for them. We joked about doing image editing with GD or ImageMagick and people doing their word processing with pico. Of course, now you can do both word processing and image editing online. This web is getting crazy.
Published on
March 12, 2006 in
Security.
How many times have you sat around and thought “Man, that fire alarm is obnoxious!”
I thought that while shopping at a big warehouse store a few weeks ago. The alarm really hurt my ears, but nobody seemed interested in going anywhere. We were ready to go so nothing held us back from leaving. Perhaps if it wasn’t for the sensitivity of my wife’s ears and the perceived sensitivity of our daughter’s ears I would have stayed a bit since there was no smoke in site.
This Thursday we had two separate fire alarm incidents at the church building. both were caused by people knocking into pull stations, and neither caused much panic. The following email was sent around following the first incident in the morning:
This morning the fire alarm was accidentally set off. However, it has been brought to my attention that we all need to be aware of something very critical. Unless you are notified that we are having a fire drill everyone – I mean everyone is to exit the building. Calling me on the phone to determine whether it is a drill or not could prove to be problematic. Please, I urge you for your own safety and the safety of the Church to exit the building unless you have been instructed otherwise.
Nobody from the morning childcare program or the preschool left. Few staff members left either.
That evening when it happened again after hours the security guy in charge that evening had to argue with some people to get them to actually leave the building while they made sure it was just a false alarm.
It is amazing how lax everone gets when we don’t expect emergencies.
As I mentioned in the previous post, I was at the church very late last Friday. The reason for this was the fundraising auction for the school. There is always a lot of interesting stuff up for bid, but one item did catch my eye. It was an upright scooter that went for $700 (retail is $1500 I believe). The person who bought it was not able to get it home that night so we stored it in one of the electrical rooms over night.
I could immediately see a use for it in our sprawling building. This great way to transport light equipment, but we couldn’t get it authorized for the budget. While “inspecting” it I noticed two interesting warning stickers, so I will share them with you.
Huh?
But what if I don’t want to keep automatic discharging? Should I open the circuit b efore I before stopping?
Once the engineers have made their peace, it is time for the lawyers to get their words in with the “Drive’s Warning.”
I had no idea that royalty was involved in the production of this vehicle. We are very impressed.
It has been almost a week since my last post. This week has been crazy. We were completely over scheduled at the church.
I got away from the church around 2am Saturday morning (the head of the custodial staff wasn’t out until 4am), and then finished up locking after Saturday events at 10:30pm. Sunday had more events and so I wasn’t out until after 11pm. Since then it has just been catch up. The weekend before that and the weekend ahead are just as crazy.
It’s times like this when I want to know what they do at Granger. I assume they give their staff something wild. Just check out the pictures of their leadership team (visit the additional team links down the right too).
So, do you think it is a chemical stimulant? Caffeine or Crack?
Perhaps they are serious about the gccWIRED.com. I wonder if they hook them up to 110 or 220. 
I just finished listening to the Kojo Nnamdi podcast about blogging, and found it very informative. While there was very little new information in it for me it was good on general information.
The main topics I found of use were discussions on the usefulness of blogging and the dangers.
Blogs allow you to keep up on useful info you would never come across otherwise and they can expand on the reporting of the primary media and keep them honest.
Some of the issues are the problems that occur throughout the internet: unchecked information that hurts the innocent, derogatory information that comes to hurt the writer, and personal information the teens are all too likely to give out freely.
I like the recommendation given by one woman whose daughter was posting dangerous amounts of personal information online. She told her daughter that she read the blog regularly. The daughter’s response? “But mom, that is all personal stuff, you cannot read that?” The mom’s response? “If it’s private, then what is it doing on the Internet?”
While not revolutionary, this hour long podcast gives a very down-to-earth view on blogging.
Published on
March 2, 2006 in
Techie.
I have some information on one window that I need to copy to another, but in order to see both I have to resize them to fit both on my screen or switch back and forth. Years ago I found a program that let me “cut” a hole in the program on top to see what was underneath, but that was often inconvenient.
I recently installed Deskpins and I have found it to be very useful for this. Deskpins places an icon in your system tray and all you need to do is click on that pin and then click on the window you want to remain on top. It is the same function as “Always on top,” but it is available for any window.
Keep that directory window, small web page, audio control, or anything else right there on top for easy access.
MS Windows only.
Published on
March 1, 2006 in
Techie.
Would you sell your info to Microsoft in exchange for a USB flash drive (I cannot see how big it is).
This is a tough one. It isn’t a KFC Buffalo Snacker Sandwich, but it isn’t too much more expensive.
It is Microsoft, so chances are that they have already licensed your soul so what difference does your address make? The drive is filled with Microsoft licensing information so at least you can see if they really do own your soul.