Google is Expanding

The next big thing in search! Google Heart...

foldedspace.org: Get Rich Slowly!

Yet another article for you to read:

foldedspace.org: Get Rich Slowly!:

Quote from the author: "I've read over a dozen books on personal finance. Recurring themes have become evident."

dervala.net: Strong Language

dervala.net: Strong Language: "Engineers, scientists, and military officers often turn out good prose. Their sentences may not always be limpid, lyrical or arresting, but as writers they are capable of a clarity and precision that academics and marketers often can’t or won’t match."

While this statement may be a generalisation, I stand with the first comment for this article. "Hear Hear".

Small is the New Big

I thought it was interesting what Seth Godin (who I gather is an author of some kind) said about Churches in his article: Small is the New Big!

He said this, "A small church has a minister with the time to visit you in the hospital when you’re sick."
It is so true! In our Mega-Church culture, we have moved away from churches that have time for indivduals, we now have churches that just serve some arbitrary (though admirable) vision. Personally, I hope Seth is right and we start to move back towards smaller, more personable churches... With a the right lessons learn along the way of course :)

Does God have a sense of humor?

I thought this was a funny cartoon :)
It always amazes me that people think of God as uninteresting, always serious, etc. You just have to look around you to see that God definately has a sense of humor...
As well as an eye for art, and an imense love for you!

Soccer Anyone? 

James' Rambling at Bloglines

If you are wondering what blogs I read, try checking out my blog roll on this page:
James' Rambling at Bloglines
BTW:I have no imediate plans for this blog, but I am sure I will find a use for it someday :) It is a very easy way of sharing things I find interesting on other blogs... So that will be it's purpose for now!

A bit of archaeology for your week?

There have been some interesting archaeological discoveries recently. I was alerted to these by Khouse E-News.

9000 year old documents read for the first time by new infrared technology

Archaeological treasures found in the trash near the temple mount.

Enjoy!

Sampling Infinity

Jill Carattini Of RZIM comments on the way amazon (and increasingly) other services offer you suggested books to buy, music to listen too, etc... She suggests that this could lead to us restricting our choices to subjects or things we all ready know about? Is this a good thing? Who knows...

A Slice of Infinity (RZIM)

Red Rocks Photo

At Easter i visited "red rocks" which is basically the name for a beach at the very bottom of New Zealand's North Island. I snapped this picture look out towards the sea.

Red Rocks in Wellington

Colorization Using Optimization

This looks like a very impressive technology. Colorization Using Optimization
I just can't decide whether I should believe it!

James

I can do photo's too

Everyone else seems to be blogging about their photo's now days,
Not wanting to be left behind I have dutifully posted one of my own.
I have always loved photo's involving sunsets, silhouettes and Trees.

So I thought I'd have a go at creating one :) I hope you enjoy it...



Silhouetted Tree

Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1%.

Joel on Software - Thursday, January 27, 2005 This article talks about the illusion some companies are under that they are hiring the top 0.1% or similar. When in reality they are hiring the top 0.1% of the applicants...

Its worth reading if you are a prospective employer or employee :)

Gates and communism

Bill Gates said some controversial things in a CNet Interview today:
Gates taking a seat in your den

He says:

CNET: In recent years, there's been a lot of people clamoring to reform and restrict intellectual-property rights. It started out with just a few people, but now there are a bunch of advocates saying, "We've got to look at patents, we've got to look at copyrights." What's driving this, and do you think intellectual-property laws need to be reformed?

Gates: No, I'd say that of the world's economies, there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist.And this debate will always be there. I'd be the first to say that the patent system can always be tuned--including the U.S. patent system. There are some goals to cap some reform elements. But the idea that the United States has led in creating companies, creating jobs, because we've had the best intellectual-property system--there's no doubt about that in my mind, and when people say they want to be the most competitive economy, they've got to have the incentive system. Intellectual property is the incentive system for the products of the future.

There is a lot of people commenting on these "communist" remarks (see: Slashdot)

My quick comment is that the difference between OpenSource/FreeSoftware etc. and communisim, is that Open source is based around voluntary sharing ie. Sharing is not required. People still need to be able to own software and sell it. We also need the ability for people to say I have already gained enough for myself out of this software, and I want to give it away now. This Practice makes economic sense, because everyone has the choice; To try to patent, and market this software as a product for people to buy. Or to share it with everyone, knowing I have benefited from my software, and hoping that the others will share their software as well.

I don't have time to go on about it but I just wanted to make the point that software patents and commercial software are actually upholding our freedom, Not stealing from us. So I am kind of backing up Gates, However I don't know anything about the proposed laws or patent systems, there is potential for these to restrict freedom.
If properly constructed though, these laws should actually increase freedom not reduce it.

James

How to build a better web browser

How to build a better web browser

I am sure this has been linked by a whole bunch of other people, not to mention slashdot. But who could miss the ranting of an Ex Internet Explorer Developer?

James

Jesus' Names

Jesus has a lot of names, It has always fascinated me to hear all the names, and what they all mean. Koinania house's recent newsletter had this article on Jesus names. I thought I'd share it with you:

THE NAMES OF JESUS CHRIST

Throughout the next few weeks we will be focusing on several different aspects of the Christmas season, including the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, the history of Christmas, and the origin of many of our Christmas traditions. This week we would like to take a look at the Names of Jesus Christ and their meaning.

Names have great significance in the Bible. A name was not just the label that differentiated one person from another, but often described something about the person. The name Abraham is translated "Father of a multitude", Jacob means "supplanter" and David "beloved". The most important names in the Bible, however, describe God Himself. Through His names, God expresses the reality of who He is. God does not cloak His identity and distance Himself from His creation. Instead, we have a God who desires to be known:

... But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.
-Jeremiah 9:24

As we rush through the Christmas season burdened with busy schedules, may we take time to seek the man whose birth Christmas celebrates. Who is Jesus Christ? Was he simply a good man, a teacher, or a revolutionary? Through his names, the Bible gives us great insight into the identity of the baby that was born in Bethlehem in Judea over 2000 years ago;

Jesus
: >From the name Joshua, or Yehoshua, which means "Yahweh is salvation".

And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins
. -Matthew 1:21

Emmanuel
: From the Hebrew words Immanu: "with us" and El "God".

Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us
. - Matthew 1:22,23

The Word
: Logos in the Greek - God's living, breathing message of who He is, by whom He created all things.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made -John 1:1,3

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
- John 1:14

Son of David
: The Messiah the King, the rightful heir to the throne.

Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
-Isaiah 9:7

He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
- Luke 1:32

And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.
- Matthew 21:9

The Lamb of God
: Innocent and pure, and sent to die in our place.

The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world
. - John 1:29

But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world...
- 1 Peter 1:19,20a

I AM
: The very name of the God of Moses, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Creator:

Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
- Exodus 3:14

Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I Am.
- John 8:58

He is the Son of Man and the Son of God. He is the Rock, The Good Shepherd, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. May God be blessed for his goodness toward us, for "God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." (John 3:17)

That is who Jesus is.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace
. -Isaiah 9:6

'My King' - Koinoinia House

No More PDF's

I used to hate PDF files, more recently I have started to appreciate them a little bit more. Mainly as we now tend to have faster internet, and computers that can display the files with out too much delay. It's interesting to see that others still have issues with PDF's too.
Contentious - No PDF Press Releases


Another Surprising issue that I have come across is the number of people who don't know what a PDF is, and don't even realize that the Acrobat (aka PDF) file they read inside their web browser is any different to the other webpages they have viewed. I'll bet this is great for Adobe, but because of its wide spread use, every windows user is forced to install Acrobat reader on their computers! This does not give us much freedom of choice.

James

Where do car names come from?

Heres a excerpt from todays AWAD:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The very first car I owned was a black hatchback Volkswagen Scirocco.
Before I plonked down my hard-earned graduate-school allowance for this secondhand (euphemistically also called pre-owned or pre-loved) automobile, I made sure its air-conditioning was A-OK. With a name like Scirocco (hot, dry wind), I felt I just had to.

How do automakers come up with names for their cars? Some christen their models with feminine sounding names (Ford Festiva, Chevrolet Lumina), probably following the traditional way of naming boats, while others go for macho names (Mitsubishi Galant, Nissan Armada).

Some prefer animal names, as a way of ascribing those qualities to their cars (Mercury Cougar, Dodge Viper, Ford Bronco). Others name their cars after cities (Dodge Daytona, Chevrolet Corsica, GMC Yukon). Still others take the easy way out and use what appears to be a jumble of letters and numbers though these often indicate engine capacity or some such characteristics.

Here are some interesting auto tidbits:

o Camry is an anagram of "My car".
o "A TOYOTA" is a palindrome, and forms a mirror image.
o Chevrolet named a car Nova. In Spanish "No va" means "It doesn't go."
o Then there was the unreliable Yugo which earned the nickname "You no go."
o Saab is an acronym for Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (Swedish Aircraft
Company Ltd); BMW is Bayerische Motoren-Werke (Bavarian Motor Works).
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I thought it might make interesting Reading (and I haven't posted in a while :)

Have a great week,

James

Linguistic Articles

Hi Everyone,
I stumbled across a couple of articles that might be of interest to you all :

Changing Places

This article talks about the "black" language in that US of A. I don't profess to know much of the cultural issues around this, but I think it is interesting our own indigenous people, the Maori, also have dialect to themselves. As with all such languages there are some white who speak "Maori" and many Maori who's accent is the same as mine...

Political Slang

This article might be usefull to figure out what all those politicians are going on about in the US right now :)

And finally...

Reflections

Reflections on "Engineering Expressiveness". Does all our new technology really help us to be come more effective communicators, or do will we just fall into uniformity?

James

First Site I am Hosting

JAMBE has just started hosting websites, the first being, Good Samaritan Inn (from tonga)

If you want to host a website, just email us and we will give you a free quote.