Category: Uncategorized

Of interest from the last couple months…

How to clean your gadgets without ruining them.

Donald Miller: I’m Glad I’m Not the Same Guy Who Wrote Blue Like Jazz.

A link that will make my wife’s head explode: A Definitive Ranking of Every Character on the West Wing.

Seth Godin: Without a Keyboard.

“The public square is more public than ever, but minds are rarely changed in 140 character bursts and by selfies.”

 GEGeek Tech Toolkit – I’ve played with similar USB app packages in the past, but this one looks particularly interesting.

That time I let my cloud storage get too full…

Why You’re More Successful Than You Think.

Jamie, the Very Worst Missionary: #Blessed. I preached on Matthew 5 this past week in Ypsilanti and touched on this same theme that our very notion of blessing in warped, but Jamie lays it out in a much better way.

Kali LInux NetHunter. This past spring I was playing with some basic tools that turn tablets into hacking platforms as a way of understanding the potential security risks mobile devices can present. This takes that possibility to a whole new level.

Guy is setting up coffee dates with all 1088 of his Facebook friends. I love this idea.

A gun is more likely to be used against its owner than against a bad guy.

Diet Racism (via)

Fred Clark: Jesus, Clobber-Texts and The Centurion’s ‘Companion’

Of interest from recent weeks…

The Auto Bailout Saved 1.5 Million Jobs

Here’s Everywhere You Should Enable Two-Factor Authentication Right Now (For non tech friends, two-factor authentication is basically an easy way to add a second “layer” to your passwords on various internet sites – generally your e-mail, cloud, social network service, etc. will send you a 4-6 digit code via text so you can help prove who you are. I’d recommend using it for any service you might worry about being compromised).

The Journal of a New Cobra Recruit:

 “Sarge is a great teacher because he doesn’t just criticize. He showed the right way to shoot. What you do is you start shooting your gun wildly and run towards the target as fast as you can and, in your scariest voice, you yell “COBRA!” We worked on that all afternoon, and just before we broke for dinner, I actually hit the target! Sarge and everyone else were so happy for me that they were about to cry. Told me I’d just set the record for marksmanship in COBRA boot camp.”

(make sure you read the whole thing).

 How Hitler Tried to Redesign Christmas

The FBI Considered “It’s A Wonderful Life” to be Communist Propaganda

Surprise! It’s Super Easy to Identify People from Metadata 

Saving Mr. Banks is a Spoonful of Lies

Neil Gaiman’s New Year’s Wish

Seth Godin: Welcome to Paris

Billy Bragg – January Song:

Of interest from the last couple weeks…

Jeremy Smith – Fair Atheists, Religious Jerks and Clergy Taxes. I think in general there is a lot of misunderstanding about how clergy are taxed; because clergy are considered self-employed, and parsonages are treated as taxable income, clergy (at those who play by the rules), are often taxed at a slightly higher rate than most people. But the cause isn’t helped by clergy (especially those like Rick Warren) who do take their income as a 100% housing allowance and then are able to purchase their own homes, effectively “double dipping” by deducing the interest on mortgages.

A quick note on parsonages – the “free housing” provided to clergy – it’s good to remember that this is primarily a benefit to the congregation, not the pastor, who is missing the opportunity to build equity, receive tax credits for home ownership, and will face becoming a first-time home buyer retirement. In an itinerant system parsonages do make a degree of sense, and I appreciate being able to have lived in some very nice parsonages, but it should be made clear that this isn’t some amazing benefit clergy get – most people in the secular world would not voluntarily choose to live in a situation where their employer was also their landlord (especially if the employer had a reputation of doing things as cheaply as possible).

Seth Godin: Is there a reason for the friction? I’ve actually written about this idea in terms of computer security recently, but it certainly also applies to church membership – there are points where a degree of friction is necessary to make people aware of their choices and to take it seriously.

Lifehack: The 7 Deadly Sins of Happiness.

Fred Clark: The American Legion demands that free citizens take a loyalty pledge written by a socialist. Also from Fred, check out: ‘The rich rule over the poor’: Dave Ramsey, McDonalds, and the personal salvation of personal finance (Part 1), and (Part 2).

It’s always 10:10 in watch ads (via):

9 Things You Have Wrong About Introverts.

The Atlantic: When Trying to Rebut Criticism of Your Racial Politics, Try Not to Make Things Worse.

How Hull Inspired Paul Heaton. Love Hull & Heaton both. Despite Hull being the go-to joke in the UK about a town that’s awful and boring, I remember my time there fondly and would love to make a return visit. (Of course I also love Des Moines and Detroit, so maybe I just love cities that frequently are treated like punchlines).

David Steindl-Rast: Want to be happy? Be grateful:

Thinking of Paul Heaton and Hull, here’s an oldie from the Housemartins:

Of interest from the last few weeks:

Girl Talk sampled over 350 copyrighted songs – which then saw sales bumps.

Quit being nice.

By 2019 Lego minifigs will outnumber humans.

Wil Wheaton on depression: I Got Better.

Dearborn, Michigan is not under sharia law.

Dan Dick: Grace-free living.

J Dilla vs the Beach Boys. I did a poem a few weeks ago where I referenced J Dilla, and got a lot of shocked looks by people in the crowd that totally didn’t expect an older white guy from the suburbs to know who he was. Good times.

How to Craft the Perfect Home Office. I’m still working on a finding a good set up for my home office; there are some good tips here.

Mapping Out My Future!

Everything wrong with Back to the Future:

With all the discussion related to the trail of Rev. Frank Shaefer, I found Jason Micheli’s take to be particularly interesting.

Jeremy Smith: Fair Atheists, Religious Jerks and Clergy Taxes. I think Jeremy makes some good points here, especially if the eventual trade off is getting rid of the “self employed” designation.

How not to say the wrong thing to someone who is ill.

I challenged hackers to investigate me and what they found is chilling.

Johnny Marr – “How Soon Is Now” (not quite the same without Morrissey’s vocals, but still pretty good).

Some things that have caught my attention recently:

10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Return of the Jedi – #1 At the end, Luke would put on Vader’s helmet and take control of the Empire. (Seriously!)

Tim O’Reilly: How I Failed

The Atlantic: Librarian Fired for Getting Kid to Read

Mashable: ‘Modern Day Snail Mail’ Project Bring Human Element Back to Texting. I love this idea, but I don’t know if I’ll every bring myself to try it.

Jason Micheli: Is Christian Nonviolence Unrealistic? Is it Un-Christian?

Everything is Samuel L. Jackson’s Fault:

Donald Miller: Why People Will or Won’t Remember You.

Seth Godin: Beyond Geography

The Atlantic: Malcolm Gladwell Admits to being a Troll.

Jeremy Smith: Abusers of Confidentiality and Ambiguity in the UMC

McSweeney’s: Christopher Robin Friend Requests the Residents of the Hundred Acre Wood.

Jamie the Very Worst Missionary: Better When

Had trouble finding music that really appealed to me, but this new one from Mazzy Star is pretty good:

 As part of my involvement in Speakeasy, I had a chance to review Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks by August Turak.

As the title suggests, in this great little book, August draws upon the wisdom of the Trappist community at Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina and blends it with his own insights from working in corporate environments like MTV, as well as two software companies he founded – Raleigh Group International and Elsinore Technologies.

As I started to read the book, I found myself needing to adjust my initial expectations. I was hoping for a book that would really unpack some of the theology behind Trappist practice, as well as apply that wisdom to workplace ethics in a very analytic way. Instead, as the book’s subtitle revels, this book is a much more personal and largely anecdotal account of “one CEO’s quest for meaning and authenticity.” This is one person’s account of discovering and applying spiritual insight into the workplace, instead of a “how to” manual of how it might be done everywhere. Of course, this isn’t to say that the knowledge and wisdom isn’t practical or applicable to other situations; it most certainly is, but the book is more about embracing the conversation of how it might happen instead of dictating “5 Simple Steps to Implementing Trappist Business Practices.”

Turak identifies three core components of Trappist identity – mission, personal transformation and community, and does a great job of identifying how he has developed them in his life, and seen them practices in other businesses and organizations. There were times in the book where I questioned Turak’s examples, such as using the movie The Devil Wears Prada to illustrate the notion of the hero’s journey, it works, I just think it was an odd choice for an illustration. There were also times, when I wished he would go deeper into his analysis, especially in his discussion of Truliant Federal Credit Union and their approach to customer service. But overall, I found this to be a quick read that was personal, relevant, and easy to follow. The last four chapters of the book, in particular, are outstanding in their honesty and inspiration and I’d recommend this book simply for those pages alone.

[Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book for the purposes of review, my review and recommendation is not in anyway influenced by this. Thanks to Speakeasy, Columbia Business School Publishing and August Turak, for letting me add this wonderful little book to my library].

Here’s what has caught my eye over the last few weeks:
 
Seth Godin: The Lab or the Factory?

Fast Company: Why This Vintage He-Man Action Figure Still Smells Bad 30 Years Later. Somewhere in my parent’s basement, Stinkor still lives, next time I’m back in Iowa, I’ll have to give him a smell.

Justin Zoradi (via Donald Miller): You Don’t Have to Be Radical, Just a Little Different. Good reminder for me, that the key isn’t evaluating myself by the credentials and accomplishments of others, but by claiming and celebrating my own gifts and abilities.

Great, short post by Wil Wheaton on anxiety and depression: You Are Not Alone in This Fight

Jeremy Smith: Yes, We ARE your Grandmother’s Church.

Gizmodo: Government Destroys $170k of Hardware in Absurd Effort to Stop Malware.

David Byrne (formerly of the Talking Heads) came to Des Moines earlier this summer and had some nice things to say on his blog: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. I love the fact that he recognizes and even visits some of the great bike trails in the area. I found myself particularly drawn to his idea about growing up in the area:

“The town isn’t particularly hip, but I sort of counted that as a factor in its favor—kids would have to discover what they thought was cool for themselves. Or make it up. Or come to the conclusion that trends does not a life make.”

While I get the thought behind it, having grown up in Des Moines, my sense was we didn’t really get that chance to “discover what [we] thought was cool for themselves” – because we were still connected to the larger culture (through things like MTV), instead it felt like all this “cool” stuff was happening around us, but we were missing out. While many musicians seem to make regular stops in Des Moines now, back in the late ’80s and early ’90s it felt a little like a wasteland. Unfortunately we (or maybe just I) lacked the wisdom and foresight to discover what was cool, or just make it up myself… victims of a consumer (vs. creative) culture, I guess.

Lifehack: 20 Books Everyone Should Read Before Age 40. Guess I need to get busy reading; I have covered a little less that 1/2 of the titles, but unless I get really really focused in the next couple of months, I’m not going to cover all of them.

The Daily Show on news of Detroit’s bankruptcy:

For a better look at what Detroit has to offer and the opportunities it has to present, I loved this video from Campbell Ewald:

Fred Clark: It’s Corporations, Not Killer Robots.

If you are following any of the news concerning the NSA and their ability to intercept traffic on the internet, and you wonder about ways to better protect your privacy, check out the website https://prism-break.org/ – it provides a good overview of better software alternatives that can help you maintain your internet security. Even if you aren’t worried about government intrusion, these are good products (and practices) to keep your information from being compromised, in general. Just to cover the basics, I’d recommend using Firefox and your web-browser with the “HTTPS Everywhere” extension, and using Thunderbird for e-mail with the GPG encryption. I have hopes to get my own VPN (Virtual Private Network) set up sometime this summer, but I haven’t gotten that done, yet.

Lots of good music on the horizon, including this one from Derek Webb called “I Was Wrong, I’m Sorry & I Love You”: