There is a new project coming. The open source video project is a collaborative effort to build a worship experience. You'll be hearing more about how you can participate in it soon.
Get thinking about how you can portray worship through a multimedia presentation.
Grace,
Des
So, I've started in on a new project:
http://www.thecorevideos.com.
It's army specific - but I think it's going to be hot.
Des
You may remember that I posted about a new bandwidth testing service some time ago. They're redesigned now but still very cool.
Attention Salvationists:
Your help is desperately needed.
For a couple of years now, some of us (in the USA South at least) have been crying out the mantra, "I am the Salvation Army," or "WE ARE the Salvation Army" in response to the thought that us soldiers are members of an organization that has become short-sighted at its upper levels. Whatever you believe about that statement, it is true that the Salvation Army will ultimately live or die by its soldiers, it's ground troops that either are or are not doing the leg work. We all have a role.
Those roles have the potential to cause reverberations that could shake the foundation of the army. Our actions, our thoughts, our passions have the potential to set of a nervous system response that will flow all the way the head of our army.
Your input is important - even when it seems as though it has not.
The concept of "Open-Source" has been around in software development for years. Essentially, it represents a community of people with different backgrounds contributing to a joint project resulting in a product that benefits the entirety of the community and the world at large. I know you want input into our army. We have griped and complained long enough. But that's the wrong approach.
You, no matter who you are, represent some of the most valuable assets the Army has. You are on the ground. You have a feel for the lay of the land. You know what some of the real needs are. If you're like me, you don't need the army or anyone to tell you what needs to be done because you can see it first hand. That requires you to act.
But you want to bring the Army to these new places too. You don't want to see the army die from stagnation.
There are lots of ways to contribute. Find a need and meet it - it may be simple or it may be crazy - ask God and your friends for help and then do it. Talk. Don't just argue or gripe or complain. Talk to inspire others (corps officers, soldiers, atheists, goths, skaters, etc). Defeat hell on earth by spreading the riches of heaven.
There's another project that involves thinking (a secret op that I'm letting you in on): for now, I'm calling it The Salvation Army Core. Read this and tell me what it means:
We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were given by inspiration of God and that they only constitute the Divine rule of Christian faith and practice.
Dont' just tell me what it literally means . . . but what does it mean in terms of action? What do we do with this? Because we believe that to be true, how does it manifest itself in our lives from day to day? We have known (or should have an idea) what this literally means for a long time. Have you thought about how it translates into action? What's faith without action?
Claim it. Foot soldiers, you have the power to win or lose the battle. Leadership can do some things to reposition the troops, but who is fighting the battles?
Grace,
Desmond
Even to a hard-core Mac fan-boy Canadian living in America, this is very cool:
Canada will be the site of a new facility to manufacture and test vaccines to fight HIV/AIDS, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates announced Tuesday in Ottawa.Original Story at: CBC.ca.Ottawa will contribute $111 million toward the new Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative, while the Microsoft founder, through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will donate $28 million.
Harper and Gates signed the multimillion-dollar agreement during a news conference on Parliament Hill.
The new initiative will accelerate the pace of finding a vaccine to fight the virus that causes AIDS, and move possible vaccines to the clinical trial stage more quickly, said Harper.
"HIV/AIDS is one of the most heartwrenching health crises the world has ever seen," said Harper. "It is one of the greatest scientific challenges of our time."
Gates said: "AIDS is a very tough problem. The long-term solution is a vaccine."
Gates sidestepped a question on whether he believed Harper, who didn't attend the 2006 Internatlonal AIDS Conference in Toronto, was making the announcement in a bid for support ahead of an expected spring election.
"I'm glad to hear that putting research money into AIDS makes people politically more popular," said Gates, drawing laughter from those at the news conference.
Efforts aim to prevent AIDS
Worth about $50 billion US, Gates is the world's richest man. He has endowed the foundation, named after himself and his wife, with $24 billion US to support global health, library and education initiatives around the world.
Through their foundation, Gates and his wife Melinda have donated more than $500 million US to AIDS, as well as tuberculosis and malaria.
Speaking to the CBC's Peter Mansbridge last week, Gates said he expects a vaccine will be developed in his lifetime.
Gates will address the Canadian Chamber of Commerce later Tuesday.
Roughly 65 million people around the world have been diagnosed with AIDS since it was first identified in 1981. The United Nations estimates close to three million people died from the disease in 2006.
This is a great shot of Brody. Excuse his cleaning practices - but he is pretty funny. He made me laugh.
Des
Linux Tech Daily provides an overview (with screenshots) of Google Browser Sync for Firefox. It synchronizes not only your bookmarks, but also your settings. A perfect fit for people who run Firefox from multiple computers. This overview covers installation, use and privacy.If you use Google and you use Firefox (like all of us really should) and you use it on multiple computers, then you really need to have a look at this tool.Des
read more | digg story
Hey.
One of the things I've been working on lately is a site developed completely using Flash for the course that I am currently completing. I had an idea some time ago to develop a site called razealittlehell.com - inspired by a sermon from Mars Hill. Since I had to develop a site for the course anyway, why not choose this one.
So, if you want to see what I've been working on . . . just go to http://www.razealittlehell.com/testing/RazeHell.swf. There is a lot left to be done, but I keep changing/tweaking/editing this every day. I've got about a week left on it . . . any feedback would be appreciated.
Grace,
Des
If you've got some time to kill, there are 4 videos here that you may want to watch. These are two projects of the Carolinas' Music and Arts Conservatory video class from the summer of 2006. Basically, these students had to write and direct these scripts and I pieced the footage together at the end of the summer. Since YouTube limits me to 10 mins of video, I had to break both into two pieces.
So, enjoy
JohnBoree Part 1:
JohnBoree Part 2:
James Q. Liger Part 1:
James Q Liger Part 2:
I've been living in the US now since 2002 and, that that time, haven't really keep up to speed on the nitty gritty of politics in Canada. I know the basics - like, that we still have a prime minister. But several people have been speaking to me lately about Reasonable Accommodation which is an issue of debate, particularly in Ontario and Quebec.
This article showed up today on a site that check frequently (aka daily), Digg.com. It's a socially driving news site -that generally features tech news, but has a lot of other categories as well. The article represents a very extreme case, but does illustrate some of the issues that governments across Canada are dealing with: How far should a country bend to accommodate customs of other countries that may not be acceptable here?
January 31, 2007 10:02am
By David Ljunggren in Ottawa
IMMIGRANTS who want to live in the small Canadian town of Herouxville, Quebec, must not stone women to death in public, burn them alive or throw acid on them, according to an extraordinary set of rules released by the local council.
The declaration, published on the town's website, has deepened tensions in the predominantly French-speaking province over how tolerant Quebecers should be toward the customs and traditions of immigrants.
"We wish to inform these new arrivals that the way of life which they abandoned when they left their countries of origin cannot be recreated here," said the declaration, which makes clear women are allowed to drive, vote, dance, write cheques, dress how they want, work and own property.
"Therefore we consider it completely outside these norms to ... kill women by stoning them in public, burning them alive, burning them with acid, circumcising them etc."
Herouxville, which has 1300 inhabitants, is about 160km northeast of Montreal.
Andre Drouin, the councilor who devised the declaration, told the National Post newspaper the town was not racist.
"We invite people from all nationalities, all languages, all sexual orientations, whatever, to come live with us, but we want them to know ahead of time how we live," he said.
The declaration is part of a wider debate over "reasonable accommodation", or how far Quebecers should be prepared to change their customs so as not to offend immigrants.
The Herouxville regulations say girls and boys can exercise together and people should only be allowed to cover their faces at Halloween.
Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, said the declaration had "set the clock back for decades" as far as race relations were concerned.
"I was shocked and insulted to see these kinds of false stereotypes and ignorance about Islam and our religion ... in a public document written by people in authority who discriminate openly," he said.
I've been lucky enough to be invited to a new beta test of a great new program. It's from the makers of the Kazaa and Skype - both of which were fairly revolutionary. Joost (formerly "The Venice Project") will likely be similarly revolutionary.
It's a program designed to share high quality video feeds among peers. But it's not crappy user-generated video (a la people sitting in front of a webcam lip syncing to some pop tune). Instead it's got some neat way of distributing video from sources like TV channels, bands, etc and delivering really good video.
It's really pretty amazing. I've been impressed so far.
You can sign up for a beta (windows only at the moment, I'm sorry to say) at http://www.joost.com. If it takes off, it could be a really sweet platform.
Grace,
Des
In one of the podcasts that I've been listening too lately I heard the following prediction: That 2007 will be the year that the CD (Compact Disc) dies (The podcast was This Week in Media - and the prediction came from this article: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2007/01/18/the-end/, if you're interested). It's really interesting to think about. I remember moving from cassettes to CDs and how much cooler I felt.
Then along came my first MP3 player - a Rio 500. It was amazing - I had 64 MB of memory and could stick a couple hours of tunes in my pocket. And then, several years later, I got an iPod. Apple has sold just about 90 million iPods now. This past quarter, according to wikipedia.org, Apple sold 21,066,000 iPods. And, yes, there are still some other companies out there too that are selling MP3 players.
So, is this the year the CD dies?
HERE'S A FUN GAME:
Do you remember what you're first CD was?
Mine was Gordon by the Barenaked Ladies. I remember sitting in my room playing bass for hours along with that thing.
Yesterday was a very long day, but a very fun day. We were driving for SEVERAL hours to the little town of Ocilla, GA.
But look what we brought back.
THIS guy is a cutie. Man. And, so far, he has been as good as gold. I'm sure it's different. He's basically leaving a pack of dogs for a pack of humans. But he has been AMAZING.
I'm SURE there are more pics to come.
Grace,
Des
This is the newest product from Apple, Inc. It's coming in June. Incredible. It's definitely on the list. Check it out at http://www.apple.com.
Des
Sorry for all of the shots from home, but they're pretty neat shots. This is a photo that my father had taken this summer showing the little community that I grew up in from a different angle than what I have posted here before. And the picture is pretty much it. There isn't a whole lot more to my little town than this - maybe a half-mile or so on either direction.
I miss it. It's quite peaceful and I think I always took that for granted. Of course, after just being home I'm much more homesick than normal. But, it's something that I didn't appreciate while I was there. And, I DO appreciate my life here in Asheville as well. There are lots of things that I would like to change, and loads of things that I could complain about, but be those things as they may, there is purpose in my being here, and my wife's being here. There are a lot of great people here.
But . . . I mean, just look at this. It's so small and peaceful and secluded. It's great.
Grace,
Des
I'm excited about Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 - and all of the projected Apple announcements for MacWorld 2007.
This is on Apple.com today. I wonder what it means?
Des
