For 14.99 you can make sure that your kids have an option in case they fail out of first grade.

eToys

If you're a fan of PvP you may like this. Heck if you're not this might convert you. Enjoy! I did.

PvP: TAS

No, not the emo store. Three major search engines have released their most popular searches and they seem to say something about the users of those sites.

HT to Roughtype

Take a quiz to see if you can differentiate between Web 2.0 tech and Star Wars characters.

I scored a 37, "As your doctor, I recommend moving out of your parents' basement."

Light a candle……..

Today, Bristol-Myers Squibb, the pharmaceutical monolith that charges
nearly $1,000 for a 30 day supply of one of its HIV/AIDS medications,
is donating $1 to the National AIDS Fund for each person who simply
visits their website and "virtually lights a candle."

Please take a minute to light a candle.

Made some changes to the old blog to make it easier to find stuff. Each post will now have a category and a link to that category and any sub categories at the end of the post. I also cleaned up the sidebars a bit and tried to remove any redundancy.

Long Time Lost is a free "service" (more so it is a software app written by someone who had some spare time, good programmer friends, a little bit of creativity and a lot of coffee) that allows you to create a "search" for someone you lost touch with. That "search" is then indexed by Google (and other search engines) and then when that person you are looking for (or someone who knows them) does a "Vanity Search" (the process of searching for one's own name on Google... we know you do it!) they find your "search" and can respond to you and reconnect. All information is handled through the system so your private information like your email address isn't out there on the net. It's new, it's Web 2.0, it's powered by Google, it's Ruby on Rails... and it's FREE... so check it out.

Check it out here. I'm using it to find an old high school buddy.

Well thanks to Salguod pointing me to this plug in and my kung-fu webmaster Pat's help no more comment spammy spam. So I no longer have to approve all comments. And there was great rejoicing throughout the land!!!

This thing is freakin' awesome! Hit the link in the title for the site with plans.

HT to Geekdad.

What LoTR Character Are You?

You are most like Galadriel. There's just something about you that people like. A sort of aura. You're very kind to people, and you like to help others succeed. You're not as candid as most people would like. You don't have to share your deepest darkest secrets, but be more honest about things! You're more mature than most people your age, so don't worry!

I was back on the Rocky Mountain Ride this week where Aaron and I talked Imus, abortion, and Fox News. If those words alone don't give you indigestion then listen to the show (my audio does clear up, dang VOIP). Aaron and I will also be doing a weekly religious show. All of these shows can be called in to, so give us a ring, Saturday at 11:00 pm EST for politics and TBA for religion.

What limits do you set for the info you put out on the 'net and why? I have blog buddies who won't use their real name/face and those that put out pics of their wife and kids. I fall somewhere in between. At this point all personal pics are password protected (w00t for alliteration) in my gallery, but I use my real name and on occasion the names of family members.

Cool.

Technical Stew the first steps in a group blog/podcast on tech.

Review of Iris to Iris by Building 429

If you like to study the Bible, but have a hard time knowing where Tyre or Gilgal is or the difference between the Ammon and the Amorites is then you need to check this out. BibleMap.org is a mashup of Google Maps, the Bible, and a Bible dictionary. You select book and chapter, it highlights cities, regions, people groups, and geographic features in the passages and sticks a pin in the map related to those things. Click the pin and read an entry on that thing. Is that not cool?

Have a looksee at Technical Stew. We've got a couple of new posts and a new poll up.

The wife type person called to express indignation about the Mattel recall, wishing that she had a blog to express said indignation. Being the good husband I am I said I would give some thoughts towards a blog posting. I then ran across this site, via GeekDad SaferToys.org.

Rick Klau, its creator had this to say on his blog

Several months ago, I wrote about the horror I experienced reading about Magnetix toys in the Chicago Tribune. These toys - dozens of which were in our house at the time - had killed a young boy and injured many others. What was worse, the manufacturer and the government were both made aware of the hazards in the toys well ahead of the death. I decided that there had to be something that we - concerned parents - could do to remedy the under-staffed government agency tasked with managing toy recalls. My summary:

Give thousands of parents the tools to easily identify harmful products, leverage the community’s ability to provide visibility to legitimate threats while minimizing less serious risks, and quickly disseminate information that could be instrumental in avoiding a serious accident. I reached out to friends - Asha, Matt, Evan, Raanan, Ross, Dermot, Sean, Ray, and Dan and Genevieve from Sittercity.com - to invite their input to flesh the idea out. Ross graciously contributed a Socialtext workspace so we could brainstorm a bit on what this site should do, how it should function. Then Google bought FeedBurner, I found out I was moving, and now we’re a couple weeks away from September. Sheesh.

Somewhere in there, I installed Pligg on the domain I registered for this project - safertoys.org. I’ve had no time to tweak it beyond the initial setup, so it is unfortunately not that user-friendly to the tech novice. But in light of recent news - the Thomas the Train recall, this week’s Mattel recall, the Chinese company’s CEO’s suicide - I decided that if this idea is at all likely to have an impact, it’s better to get an unfinished site up and invite feedback than it is to sit on it while I wait for more time. (Time which I think I may get sometime around 2011.)

With that, I present SaferToys.org. SaferToys is running on Pligg, an open-source Digg clone. Users can submit stories (links, original commentary, etc.), or they can simply visit “upcoming news” and look at what others have submitted. Any stories that a user feels are worthy of increased attention, that user should vote for the story. The more votes a story gets, the more visibility it gets. (By contrast, the more people who ‘Bury’ a story, the less likely that story is to be seen.)

If you think it worthy (and I obviously do) pass this site around.

Thanks to Real Life Comics I have just lost The Game. What's The Game do you ask? Well fair enough, I'll answer since you're playing too after all.

'''The Game'''

* RULE 1: You are playing The Game.
* RULE 2: Whenever you think about The Game, you lose.
* RULE 3: Loss of The Game must be announced.

'''The object of The Game is to forget that it exists.

So guess what. You just lost too! Okay so it's silly, but it's late on a Friday so there.

Thanks to Snopes I found FreeRice. You can improve your vocabulary and donate rice to the hungry at the same time.

The rice is paid for by the advertisers whose names you see on the bottom of your vocabulary screen. This is regular advertising for these companies, but it is also something more. Through their advertising at FreeRice, these companies support both learning (free vocabulary for everyone) and reducing hunger (free rice for the hungry). We commend these companies for their participation at FreeRice.

I love me some xkcd.

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe

According to the Washinton Post, the RIAA wants to make ripping an MP3 from a CD you legally own into iTunes illegal. That's ridiculous. Now I understand the problem with giving mp3s that you've ripped to your best buds. I've little doubt that that violates copyright. Of course these says if you want to lend a CD to a friend that's the easiest way and when CDs are a thing of the past (and for some folks they already are) how are you supposed to let someone borrow an "album" or an individual song?

And this quote from Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser,

"when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.

Well that's just... words fail me. Nice words anyway.

Thanks to GeekDad I found MyMiniCity. It's sort of SimCity meets Social Networking. Your city grows by clickthroughs. Check it out.

My city's name is SpiritualCity. Click for it to grooooow.

Improv Everywhere a group that organizes flash mobs "improvmissions" put on this interesting show:

On a cold Saturday in New York City, the world’s largest train station came to a sudden halt. Over 200 Improv Everywhere Agents froze in place at the exact same second for five minutes in the Main Concourse of Grand Central Station. Over 500,000 people rush through Grand Central every day, but today, things slowed down just a bit as commuters and tourists alike stopped to notice what was happening around them. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our mission report and photos.

I don't know how I would have reacted or if I'd ever particpate in something like this. I figure so long as they're not interfering with serious business and no one gets hurt though this is pretty cool.

I often say that I have no words and now I honestly mean it.

LOLCat Bible Translation Project

I think I just lost a SAN point.

This is something I've been thinking about doing for many moons. I'm a huge fan of what Steve does at EsacpePod, PseudoPod, and what PodCastle will be doing. That is have a paying market for artists to sell their audio rights to. So here's what I'm thinking of as far as submission guidlines go.

Length - 2,000 to 6,000 words long. That seems to work well for what I'm hearing over at Steve's place.
Licensing - I'd use the Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 license.
Content - This is the tricky bit. I would want it to be Christian speculative fiction.
Pay - It will. Not sure how much to start, but I don't want anyone to work for free who doesn't want to.

What is speculative fiction? That would be fantasy/sci-fi.

What does it mean to be Christian fiction? Well my wife and I talked about that. In a nutshell (and I'll expand upon this as things start to gel) it would mean that the story would have to communicate some aspect of the Gospel. It wouldn't have to nail everything down since that might be asking a bit much. I'd be looking for things along the lines of what Ted Dekker writes. I'd say it needs to steer clear of excessive violence, sexual content and profanity. I'm not looking for rated G stuff (though that would be fine), but defintely no R. I don't want allegory (unless it's just REALLY good).

So I need your help. One, would you listen? Two, would you contribute? Three, I'm mulling over names and will take any suggestions.

I am Siddhartha.

You're Siddhartha!
by Hermann Hesse
You simply don't know what to believe, but you're willing to try anything once. Western values, Eastern values, hedonism and minimalism, you've spent some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in. This makes you an individualist of the highest order, but also really lonely. It's time to chill out under a tree. And realize that at least you believe in ferries.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.