Monthly Archives: October 2007

Welcome to the Icebox

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Let’s see… fall is here, a cold front in going to roll through at about 5:00-6:00 pm, so let’s turn on the A/C! It is cold in here.

I think I now have a good selection of random widgets on this site. Now I want to work on a cool page of people at the UTA CDE that are blogging. That will be a tab in the upper header, as a separate page.

I wish that I was living in Austin now. The upcoming Dark Knight movie has a cool promo at whysoserious.com. But it’s only for certain cities, like Austin. No Dallas. Ah, well.

Interesting article of the day:

Terabyte Storage for Cell Phones
A nanotech-enabled device could replace the flash memory used in portable electronics.

A thumb-drive sized hard drive with a Terabyte of storage? That’s over a thousand Gigabytes. I have an external hard drive at home that stores all of my files, programs, and music (mp3 format) – as well as a few home videos. That is only 250 GBs, and not even full. My whole life, including movie collection, could fit on a cell phone some day. That is crazy. But I want one already…

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Now playing: Vector – The Power of Love
via FoxyTunes

In India, Poverty Inspires People to Action

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“In Redmond, you don’t see 7-year-olds begging on the street,” said Sean Blagsvedt (former Microsoft engineer).

This statement refers to the difference between the streets of India and the streets around Microsoft’s headquarters in the US. A growing trend in India is that wealthy workers are seeing the poverty around them and are being moved to do something with technology to help these people.

Mr. Blagsvedt idea was to build a social networking site for poor street workers looking for employment. It seems that the rich complain about not having enough people to hire, and the poor complain about not having enough jobs. the problem was that there was no connection between the two. Mr. Blagsvedt answer? Technology!

The biggest problem was the fact that the poor don’t have access to computers, and the rich don’t want to trust just anyone they find online. So, the design of Babajob.com was to pay the people with computer access to set up profiles for good workers that they have found. Fairly ingenious. You can see the whole article here.

If you have ever read the Bible, especially the New Testament, you might have been struck by the idea that we are supposed to do something about poverty. I’ve always wondered why so few of us do that. Heck – I’ve wondered why I have a hard time doing anything. I think some of it has to do with the attitudes of the most visible poor: the corner beggars. I’ve gone and talked to a few of them, even offered to help them apply for jobs. They aren’t interested in doing that. Now, I know that those people represent less than 5% of the actual poor out there. But they are the 5% that most of us ever get to deal with, so I am assuming that they are (unfortunately) influencing our national attitudes toward the poor. Why would we want to help those that just want a free hand out?

There has got to be a way to get something like this started here in the US. Some kind of site that links us needs with those willing to give. I am thinking mostly time here, and not money. I would love to go do something about poverty, if I could just find where to go on my free Saturday afternoons.

Wikipedia

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Wikipedia - Yes or No

Bring up Wikipedia in academic circles, and you will probably get a passionate argument of how this controversial site is ruining student research papers. I’ve seen many syllabuses (that is the way you spell it, FYI) with entire pages devoted to warning students about using Wikipedia references in anything academic – even discussion board replies.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say something that may not sit well with you are first – Wikipedia does make a great research site. So far, I’ve found it to be one of the best out there (if you don’t count search engines). Blasphemy, you say? Well, let me make my case.

First of all, I need to start by saying this: Wikipedia makes a horrible reference site. There’s one simple reason behind that: you should never quote a reference that can change. There are a few other reasons, but that is the main heart of that. Here’s the crazy thing most people don’t realize: the creators of Wikipedia agree with this. They always have. So – don’t blame Wikipedia for ruining research papers. Blame whoever didn’t teach your students better referencing skills in the first place.

The problem is, when we try to scare students away from referencing Wikipedia, we tend to make to whole site out as bad. And that’s just not the case.

I typically start any research project with Wikipedia. I am a big believer in Social Constructivism pedagogy. In basic terms, that means we construct knowledge by connecting new knowledge to old knowledge and share these connections with others.

For Constructivists like me, Wikipedia is a gold mine. Not only do you find articles on almost every subject imaginable, but you will also see links within the article that link to related articles as you read. Everything in Wikipedia is connected to existing concepts. So – you don’t just learn some random new fact – you can easily see how it fits into the greater body of general knowledge.

This, at least in my theory, is why Wikipedia is so popular and oft-quoted: people remember more of what they read there because it is connected to the greater body of worldwide knowledge.

The other great thing about Wikipedia is list of references and external links found at the bottom of most articles. These links usually lead to the sites or sources that do make good references. And these references also deal with another problem people have with Wikipedia: “since anyone can edit it, how do you know the information is correct?” Valid question, and Wikipedia is working on that in different ways. But here is my answer: don’t make Wikipedia the last word for your research. Check the references and check the external links – see where those lead you, and see if the Wikipedia article is correct. If not – then why not go back and correct it? That kind of is the point, anyway.

The Whole Gospel From All Angles

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A recent post at the Thinklings, as well as a session that my wife taught at a retreat this weekend (Holistic Health), got me thinking about the Gospel. The whole Gospel. Most spiritual people, even if they don’t follow Jesus specifically, tend to be able to tell you what they think the Gospel is.

The simple answer for most Christians is that the Gospel is the “Good News” of the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Some have been arguing that the Gospel is really something else – specifically, it is offering social justice to the oppressed. A few are slowly beginning to realize that it is both and even more.

A few months ago, my wife and I attended a “community health evangelist” training at our old church back in Waco. The session started off by looking at Jesus’ mission statement. When Jesus began his public ministry, you see him in the temple reading a specific passage from Isaiah (chapter 61, verse 1, but I have included more here):

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners (or the blind),to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,

and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.

Many people look at these verses from the spiritual angle. When He speaks of restoring sight for the blind, we think that God will give (in)sight to the spiritually blind. The interesting thing is, Jesus then went around physically healing the blind.

The intent of The Gospel was to minister to the whole person – physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. And we see this is so in the verse from Isaiah above (with a smattering of social justice thrown in for good measure). Take a look at this part of the scriptures from a non-spiritual angle:

  • “to preach good news to the poor”: what is better news for the poor than to know that their oppression is gone? That they can be free from debt maybe? There’s your social justice.
  • “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted”: healing our emotional wounds and issues.
  • “to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners”: freedom from addictions (physical health), from oppressive relationships (social health), from destructive emotional conditions?
  • “to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion… and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair”: emotional comfort in tragic situations.
  • “They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations”: rebuild devastated communities, or even social relationships.
  • “And you will be called priests of the LORD, you will be named ministers of our God”: even when looking at this scripture from a non-spiritual angle, there is still an obvious reference to addressing spiritual issues.

The interesting thing is that Jesus took this passage of scripture from both a spiritual and non-spiritual angle at the same time, and lived his life fulfilling both angles daily.

Record Companies are Pathetic

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Yep – you read that right – records companies are pathetic: sad, petty, and useless. A recent case involving a lawsuit against an online file sharer shows just how slimey they are. The jury found in favor of the company (which they should have, the person was obviously guilty) – and then called for $9,250 in damages for each of the 24 songs involved in the trial. (!)

Am I the only one in the world that finds this to be abusive? $9,000 for one song – that on average was maybe shared with possibly a 100 people, causing about A $100-200 loss to the record company (depending on how much you think individual songs are worth. If you know anything about the recording industry, you know that most big record companies only spend an average of about 25 cents per song for a moderately successful song). Charging someone that much for sharing a song online is like finding someone guilty for murder and then declaring that every person in the United States with the same last name as the killer to be executed.

Here’s the kicker – the record companies never had to prove that the songs were actually downloaded by someone else. Just offering them online was enough to gain this verdict. So – they only had proof that she cost the record company maybe $30-40 – and they got $222,000 in damages!

I won’t accuse anyone of wrong doing (*cough* bribery *cough* payoff *cough* *cough*), but something stinks here.

I’m not in favor of stealing music or illegally downloading songs – but if the record company accepts this obviously unfair verdict – they are nothing but scumbags. And for any artists that stand with the big record companies in this decision – I will no longer be buying your CDs. Or your junk merchandise.

Record companies – WAKE UP! YOU are the ones that have caused illegal file sharing to become such a huge problem. You’ve done everything you can to steal money from us and the bands you sign – eventually there had to be a backlash. Do you really think we were happy going out to buy a CD of cool song that were heard on the radio just to find out that one song was the only good song on a CD full of junk? Do you think were happy when we invested a ton of money into a record or tape collection, only to have you roll out CDs and expect us to re-buy all the music that we already owned? Did you really think we were going to fall for that again for all the new “better-than-CD” options you’ve tried to roll out since then? Did you really think we ignored all of those expose TV shows that showed how CDs now don’t cost you any more than tapes to produce, but you still keep charging more? Did you really think we’ve ignored all of the artist interviews through the years about how they were ripped off by you?

Song of Solomon

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Want to hear something crazy? I am preaching a sermon this Sunday. I’ve done some preaching in my life, but the last time I did was in 2002 in India. I still do some public speaking at conferences and other places for work, so I won’t be totally rusty, I just still wonder if I have a good lesson in me now.

The reason I wonder is that my church is going through the Song of Solomon right now. So I am working on something out of that. The deal with SoS is – I’ve never really had a problem with it. Many people do – they don’t understand why it is in the Bible. And that’s okay – most people have a book or two in the Bible that they have problems with. Martin Luther himself had problems with several books – James, Revelations, etc. So it’s okay.

But for me, I’ve always been okay with SoS being in there – even if you think it is strictly a love poem. You see, I have (for a long time) believed that God is concerned with every part of our lives. If you take SoS out of the Bible – there is a huge part of married life (the romantic part) that is missing from the Bible. I mean — what else do you have in there? Sampson and Delila? Hosea? Even David’s stories aren’t that romantic.