Odds and Ends – 7/11/08

Well, it’s been a couple of weeks since the last Odds and Ends, so I’ve got a few links that have caught my attention.  Have fun!

• Play with sand (simulated on your screen)
• Check out Listening Post’s Top Ten Hottest Music Sites
• Try a new way to surf or navigate the web with All My Faves (at the least it is a visually interesting collection of links to a bunch of different websites using icons)
• Try this new website creator: very cool interface…haven’t personally tried this.
• Having trouble with acronyms? Don’t fear, there is help for you here at Acronym finder.
• Read about a LifeWay study that “adds doubt about Pew poll’s claims regarding evangelicals’ ‘universalism”.
• Read early reviews on the new iphone at Macworld.
• Read Newsweek article asking “Who was more important:  Lincoln or Darwin?”
  
• Read about “hypermiling” (and its dangers).
  

Wordle: 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Chances are you’ve heard of Wordle by now.  If not, here is a description from their website:

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

Here is a wordle that I created based on 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, which is the text I will preaching from this week (“Leadership from our Knees”).  To see this wordle in larger form you can go here or click on the wordle below.  (I didn’t realize you could change fonts & colors when I created this one)

Obviously, this is a very small passage from which to create a word cloud, but I did after noticing Paul use some form of Christ (Christ, Christ Jesus, Lord Jesus Christ) nine times in these nine verses.  For Paul, Jesus is central, but that had not been the practice of the Corinthians.  More important, for me at this time, is the realization that Christ must central to our prayers – not just bookends (Dear Jesus…In Jesus Name, Amen) to our prayers.

Though I haven’t done it yet, it might also be interesting to turn a sermon into a wordle as a way of seeing what is most prominent in one’s preaching (e.g. your main theme, the Gospel, Jesus or maybe something that you wouldn’t actually like).  We might be able to see if we are exalting God and His Gospel or man and his works!   I let you know how that one goes if I try it.

Also, if you haven’t seen it yet, check out the wordle created from the ESV Bible – you’ll never guess which words show up the most (okay, actually you might).  Have fun!

Odds and Ends – 6/28/08

Once again bringing you a few of the odds and ends from around the web:

Read about the success of the University of Georgia’s athletics programs this year (including national championships in Equestrian, Men’s Tennis, and Gymnastics; and a near miss in baseball and great finish in football).

Read Mashable’s 30+ Must have Updated Firefox 3 Extensions.  I am liking the new Firefox 3 so far.

Read about the largest membership decline for the PCUSA in nearly 30 years (say around when the PCA was established).  In unrelated news, read about a retired PCUSA minister officiating a gay wedding in California and read about the recent PCUSA General Assembly changing the Heidelberg Confession.

Read about kids protesting high gas prices after their mother cancels cable.

Read NY Times article on American religious tolerance – no surprise here, although the results among evangelicals/Protestants may be.

Read about a guy named God Lucky Harris arrested near a church selling cocaine.  News agencies have enjoyed this one.

Enjoy!

Odds and Ends – 6/21/08

My friend Ed has Bits and Tidbits, Steve McCoy has Lots-O-Links, and colossiansthreesixteen has The Weekly Town Crier, so I present to you the second installment of Odds and Ends – helping you, dear reader, find the end of the internet, the odd things, and a few gems in between (okay, so it will probably be mostly gems, but odds and gems doesn’t sound as good – does it?).

The Big Picture at boston.com:  If you like photography, photo-journalism, or just to see some amazing high resolution photos.  This is starting to be a more regular visit for me.  The picture taken during the Euro Cup (on the front page; from a June 12th post) is incredible.

Resurgence Greek Project:  very cool online New Testament Greek tool.

Catfish and Cornbread: this is a sports blog devoted to the University of Georgia.  If you know me, you know that I love college football.  What I love that this blog is doing, is going through Georgia’s roster player by player (according to uniform number), day by day as a countdown to the season.  So, not only do I get to learn about the roster, but I also get to ramp up my anticipation as we get closer and closer.

Time’s 50 Best Websites of 2008:  I suppose it wouldn’t be fair for them to put me on the list since I only started blogging in April, so I imagine I’ll make the 2009 list.

Who Will Rule the New Internet:  an article from Time – again, no mention of my blog.

The Simpson in the Real World:  this is an entry on a blog, called The Contaminated (“You will be contaminated…by fun”), that shows pictures of what the Simpsons house would look like in real life.  There are some other interesting entries on this blog, including some pictures of a giant poker game (as in larger than life-sized cards, chips, & table) – which got me singing:  “You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, know when to run…” (I could keep going).

Have fun…

Odds and Ends (around the web)

Here are a few things that I have come across on that thing we call the world wide web:

SafeManuals.com: The tag line is “Find and keep your user manuals”. I keep a file of user manuals (it’s quite large at this point) and I always have to look through all the manuals to find the one I want. So, this could be a very useful site and make a lot of sense.

You’ve Been Left Behind (link now corrected): Why didn’t I think of this. Just in case the pre-trib rapture is a reality you can sign-up for this “Rapture” triggered email messaging system. From the site: We have set up a system to send documents by the email, to the addresses you provide, 6 days after the “Rapture” of the Church. This occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any false triggering of the system. The cost for the first year is $40. (HT: ColossiansThreeSixteen) There are so many more things I could say, but I will exercise restraint.

Reformissionary: A blog by a pastor in Chicago that I have been frequenting more often. I will add this to the blogroll soon.

The Something Store: you pay $10 – they send you something (it’s a surprise to you, and we all like surprises!). Just not sure about paying to surprise yourself. That said, you can see some of the items that you might be surprised by and for sure a few are worth more than $10 (e.g. an ipod nano or $20 gas card).

Article: Top 10 Things You Forgot Your Mac Can Do. I like to use number 3 from time to time.

Trafficare: Speeding Ticket (and other offenses) Insurance. Memberships start at $12.95/month. No comment.