12 Witnesses

Apparently the “Toronto Blessing” or the “Spirit of Holy Laughter” that Benny Hinn is said to keep in the folds of his jacket has its roots in India…

It’s a joke, people. Laugh a little.

Last week I took some pictures in a near full moon. If you like these, you can find more on my photoblog.

[Show as slideshow]

Click on the thumbnail for a larger picture.

I will be posting more posts in the Better Blogging series.  I have at least two more that will seriously help you, but they will take quite a bit of time to finish and I am tired of staying up all night to write.  I’ll try and polish them off as soon as I am able and post them soon.  Hang in there.

In the mean time, I will be setting posts to drop with interesting links or videos.

Oh, and I am still working on some thoughts concerning cooperative mission efforts and what we can actually do to make things work better.

From the Skit Guys:

Something crossed my mind the other day and I just couldn’t let it go. In a discussion over a year ago on Missional Cooperation, a Seminary Student included this thought in a comment left on my blog:

“by giving to the cp, they are already giving to ‘their mission dollars to missions they themselves are doing.’”

Apr 10th, 2007 at 8:03 am

I really could not forget that statement and the mindset it represents. Finally, I would just like to put it to be by saying a hearty:

“NUH UHHHH!”

Participation in the Cooperative Program is not doing missions. It is paying someone else to do missions. I’m not saying supporting missionaries that live in a context of lost people is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, I think we should be giving much more to the field.

However, sending money is not the same as personal engagement. We need to be a church that is engaging people in Tulsa, North America and around the world, as described in Acts 1:8. Us. Our church.

The CP has done amazing things, but one of the negative consequences is that our people have become convinced that they do not need to actually get up and do something but by sending some money to the CP, they’ve done missions. and. that. is. a. lie.

I mentioned in Better Blogging: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that Search Engines will evaluate your host server’s ability to handle traffic and will not send you what you can not handle. Nevertheless, having your own site instead of having a .blogspot.com, .wordpress.com, .typepad.com, .squarespace.com or whatever other free blog site you might acquire will cause you to stand out to Search Engines better and is easier for most people to find. Remember, although you are super tech savvy, most of the world is still catching up. The vast majority of the world does not read blogs, but if you want them to find your content, you have to get the Search Engines to rank you high enough that you are found before they get tired of looking through all the links.

There are other reasons. One is financial. Believe it or not, typepad is not free, although your blog will show up as a subdomain on their site. For a couple of dollars more per month, you can have your own .com website. Granted, this is more than the other subdomain sites, which are free, but it is not overly expensive. I bought my server space for two years up front and haven’t had to worry about it since that time. It’s coming up again, and I’ll evaluate as the time draws near, but I use Bluehost and they are pretty good - constantly upgrading, etc.

By the way, I’ve given this before, but I’ll give you another link to “Who is Hosting This?” Go to the site and input the address of the site you wish to know about, and it will return the registered host of the domain in question. Just in case you want to know who your favorite blogger uses as a host.

As I mentioned, performance is an issue. I know that I just said that Bluehost is good with its servers. It is. But. Did you know there is more to server speed that you should consider?

Up until recently, the size, speed, operating system and uptime (time your servers were running properly, which equals the time your site functioned properly as well) were all that you had to consider when it came to choosing a host.

That was all I worried about when I signed on with Bluehost and all that I concerned myself with until I found this out: The scientists that actually invented the internet - no, not Al Gore, but the physicists at Cern - have actually already re-invented the internet.

Here’s the brief sketch and a link to the full story.

They invented the internet to store data that they were collecting as they attempted to record the splitting of atoms in the world’s largest supercollider. Well, the old internet has proven to be insufficient to handle the data, because, no matter how big and fast the computers they attempt to use to record everything, the massive amounts of data that get collected bottles up on phone lines that are not efficient, even for phone service. Thus, they have replaced the phoneline connections with a series of fiber optics called “The Grid.”

The Grid is 10,000 times faster than the typical BROADBAND connection. Think, the fastest connection you can get vs. instant. The only thing slowing you down now is your own computer. What’s this got to do with blogging? As technology advances, prices will come down. This will one day be affordable. Well, first it has to be available, then it will become affordable. It will happen a lot faster than the first internet, though. That’s what I think, anyway.

Finally, Layered Technologies offers a different type of grid. Although out of most people’s price range at $49/mo, LT handles your information by spreading it out over several “nodes” rather than piling all on one machine, which can only give your site so much time if it also happens to host one or more busy sites. Thus, the requests for your info gets shared over a system of servers rather than just one machine. That is also technology that is going to get cheaper as time goes by.

Heck, it’s already cheaper than a tank of gas, though that is not saying much.

For my beautiful and loving wife, the Math nerd.

[edit - Actually, my wife, said math nerd, checked him and he did miss two of the three digit numbers. It takes a math nerd to want to check the mathemagician. She says, while sitting next to me, “Accuracy is important in math.” Of course it is. That’s why she’s the best.

This post is for everyone who blogs.

First, let me put up a great little video that explains what an rss feed that was made by Common Craft. This is particularly helpful for those who don’t already know and those who might still understand it vaguely.

John P. recommends that you make the link to your rss feed very easy to find and he has this ENORMOUS button for feeds.

Lorelle Van Fossen recommends an entire page dedicated to specialized feeds, like feeds for different categories, so if someone only wanted to subscribe to tech stuff or Phriday fotos, then they could pick that one. Or, you could even combine a feed with related categories, like tech stuff and blogging or a combo of link loads and the run down. I’m working this out, but I’ve promised David Phillips, my tech support, that I wouldn’t tinker until later this week, when he has more time to help.

The main thing I want to pass on is that you should send YOUR FULL FEED to the feed readers. I thought, at one time, that I would not get people to my site if I gave them the full article in the feed reader, so I would give them a taste and hope they would crave more and come to the site. I don’t know whether that worked for me, but I can guarantee that it doesn’t work on me.

I almost never click on the website if the feed is truncated, so it is counterproductive to those who use that technique, since I neither follow the feed to their site and I also do not read what they have to say.

The point for most people is that they have the their thoughts read. If you are worried about counting readers, insert the Feed Statistics plugin and you can see almost all the same information that you would as if they hit your site, including the links they hit from your feed.

If you don’t know where this setting is, go to the “Settings” link and then the “reading” link in WordPress 2.5. After that, you will find, almost at the bottom of the page, a box that looks like this:

Click the Full Text option, and you’re set.

Hope that helps you.

Today is the 13th Anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building building in Oklahoma City. It’s a scar that the heartland still bears.

photo by Kent Harville.

You can find some interesting pictures and a first hand account over at the Lifeway News Blog in a post called Friday Photos 4/18/08: Remembering The Oklahoma City Bombing, 13 Years Later.

I remember that I was in Seminary and my Mother-in-Law was in OKC for the day when I heard the news on the radio. It was tense until we were able be sure she was alright. She later said that the explosion shook the chandelier in the meeting room where they were in a hotel all the way by the airport.

In this edition, a tool to keep your hands clean, a little girl’s power sander, 1950’s documentary of a dream trip to Disneyland (MUST WATCH), the most expensive bottled water (you thought gasoline was getting expensive…), writing 200,000 books ain’t that hard, ballroom dancing with dogs (not kidding), pachyderm painting, serious paintballers only, efficient freezer baggage, subdivision affordability with transportation factored in, table top biosphere, re-packaging your computer into a teddy bear, the new source of antibiotics: alligator blood (not kidding) and, finally, this week’s sign that the end is near: Mommy 2.0.

The Handler

This handy pocket tool/key chain keeps your hands off of filthy things, and has antibacterial coating as well. Germaphobes, this is for you!

The outrageous hello kitty Power sander

Well, it is what it says it is. A Hello Kitty power sander. Yikes.

Disneyland Dream

You’ve got to go watch this real live piece of Americana from the 1950’s. This Connecticut family documents the winning of a contest to go to the newly opened Disneyland in California. Fringe coats, different hats for the different areas of the park and a neighborhood tickertape parade to send them off in style.

Most Expensive Bottled Water

Need to drink water from a glacier? I hope you have some coin… Apparently this is all the rage among people with more money than sense.

LINK BY LINK; He Wrote 200,000 Books (but Computers Did Some of the Work)

Got writer’s block? Maybe you can borrow this guys computer program which will fill in the pieces for you after you give it the necessary information.

Dance, doggie, dance

No kidding, Youtube video of a dance with dogs as the partners. No kidding. Did I tell you I wasn’t kidding?

Elephant Painting

Youtube. Fascinating.

Paintball Turrett

Need to defend your fort? Watch your back while you snipe the enemy? You may be a little to serious about paintball, but this will help you do it. It is automatic.

Speed tip: Make individual portions in freezer bags

Freezer bag efficiency. This is actually a good idea.

How affordable is that subdivision?

Affordability Index

This set of links is to a story and tool, respectively, that will help you figure out what the real cost of a subdivision is when you factor in the cost of skyrocketing gasoline. If your city is like mine, the cheaper subdivisions are a long way away - and that means driving. How expensive is your home if you have to drive 25 miles to the office and then another 25 to get home?

Make your own Biosphere

For your desk as a conversation piece. Complete with shrimp and other fun, living things. Once you seal it, you never have to open it again.

Programmers, DIY Types Embrace Soft, Hackable Chumby

This computer is made to be taken apart and rehoused in whatever you want to put it in. Like a teddy bear.

Antibiotic Alligator: Promising proteins lurk in reptile blood

Thought that diseases were outsmarting our overuse of antibiotics? Apparently, there is a whole new reservoir of bacterial resistant proteins in the blood of alligators.

Mommy 2.0

This week’s sign that the end is near: A book that helps moms explain to kids why they are going to get plastic surgery.