Junk Drawer Spirituality

The Craziness of Google "Auto-Complete"

Popular search engine, Google, has added a relatively new feature called "auto-complete." The way it works: as you type a word or phrase into the search bar, the autocomplete program predicts what the remainder of your word or phrase might be based on the most popular search queries others have entered.  So a drop-down box of options appear, and you can just point and click if your specific search phrase pops up.  It's supposed to save you time.

It also offers a bizzare look into the weird things that are on people's minds.  Try this sometime: just type in the beginning to ANY QUESTION, and watch what pops up in auto-complete's option list.  You'll see some crazy stuff . . .

• If you simply type the word "why", the number 4 option on the list is the question, 'Why can't I own a Canadian?"  Hmmm.  Glad to know so many people are curious about that.
• If you fill in the phrase further and type "Why does," the #3 option is "Why does my belly button smell?"
• Apparently, of all the people on Google who type "Where," the fourth most requested conclusion to that phrase is, "Where is Chuck Norris?"
• Taking the Gold medal on the bizzare, if you type "How do I get"  the third most popular conclusion to that query is "How do I get me sister to sleep with me?" . . . Really?
• And finally, when you type "Do people," the ninth most searched question is this: "Do people poop when they die."

Thank you Google for shining a spotlight on the weirdness of all of us.

How Apple Screwed Up the iPad (And How To Save It)?

I have become an Apple freak over the past year.  Last March I bought my first Macbook, officially making the switch from Windows based machines, and after 11 months I can confidently say I have no regrets about making the adjustment in my computing lifestyle.  As I've fallen in love with my Macbook, I have become more and more enamored with the crown jewell that is Apple.  So I, like many other Apple fans, have been eagerly anticipating Apple's announcement of an Apple Tablet.  Because I need one?  Nope.  I just like cool stuff, and I wanted to see how Apple would push the tech envelope.

So last week, Apple unveiled their "tablet" devise dubbed the "iPad," which was subsequently met with almost immediate jokes and jears from techies and bloggers.  I think there were 3 big problems that hit Apple immediately.

The 12 Most Annoying Types of Facebookers

I just read this article on CNN.com.  Thought it was pretty clever.  And I'm pretty sure I've violated almost every single one of this guy's facebooking pet-peaves at one time or another, so that makes it even more entertaining for me (except for the one on on being a "chronic inviter"  I NEVER do mass invites, nor do I respond to them).

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/20/annoying.facebook.updaters/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Does Church Online Work?

One recent phenomenon that we're beginning to see at a few churches around the country is the use of the internet to broaden the church's reach to folks who might not be interested in physically stepping inside the doors of a church.  Now days, you can create a live streaming video of an entire worship service with professional quality camera work and audio, and at the same time operate within a chat room where people sharing the same experience can chat back and forth about the message and service, pray for each other, and even participate in an online small group later in the week.

I am not 100% sold on the experience.  I think time will tell how valuable of a service an online campus really is in helping people love God and people well.  I'm glad churches are trying it, but I continue to have trouble with the idea that a person could watch an online service, enter a chat-room, never meet a single person from my church face-to-face, but we would somehow be OK with that and not push them to experience "real" church.  On the other hand, I do truly believe in online community.  I think real community DOES happen through internet technology (blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.).  I suppose the question is whether or not "church community" can happen online where people are somehow loving God better, loving people better, and finding their way back to God.

Well, today, I came across this video that put another plus in the column for online community (if you're keeping score).  Check it out.

http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2009/08/13/why-church-online/comment-page-1/#comment-165763

The Big Switch . . . My PC to Mac Conversion

Alittle over a month ago, I made a significant life change.  I decided to buy a mac.  It was not an easy decision.  It was something I'd fought for a very long time, but here are the reasons I finally decided to make the switch:  

1.  A few months ago, a bunch of viruses made their way into my Dell's systems folder and started screwing around with my machine to the point where I had to just erase everything and start over.  I'm honestly sick of dealing with viruses, and just as sick of messing with anti-virus software.  

2.  Even after reloading my Windows operating system and cleaning out the whole hard drive, I still ran into the same kinds of problems I always encountered with the computer.  Windows would freeze up and crash on me, or everything would run super-slow for no reason at all.

Back on The Blogging Horse

It has been 41 days since my last blog post, and I've been feeling alittle guilty about that.  I enjoy blogging . . . I do.  But I just haven't posted anything recently, and I can surmise 4 reasons why:

1.  I have been super busy for the past month.  Between Easter, visitors, trips, purchasing a house, and the increased pressures of ministry, I have had little excess time to post.

2.  I have become much more active on Twitter, which I guess has scratched a bit of that social networking itch.  Twittering is definitely different from blogging, but they're similar enough that one makes me not miss the other quite so much.

3.  I actually bought a mac in the last month (which warrants a whole other post).  It has taken me a bit to get my computer up to snuff configuration-wise, and my internet has been a bit finicky.

4.  When I'm blogging regularly, I put much less pressure on myself when determining what exactly is a "post-worthy" subject.  But after you haven't blogged in a week, or two weeks, or 41 days, you start to feel alittle more pressure to post something really, really, brilliant, witty, and wise . . . 

As you can tell, on this last point, I have decided to throw caution to the wind :).

So, as of today, I'm going to try, once again, to get my blog on.  I like life when I'm blogging.  I like processing thoughts and ideas and feelings in a way one can only do when working on a post.  So I'm officially re-entering the blogging world . . . And I'm going to try to keep on it more consistently this time.    

Going A-Twitter

A few weeks ago I decided to begin a little experiment.  I decided to begin a Twitter account.  I've resisted for many months in the same way I initially resisted blogging and Facebook, but I finally succumbed to the technological pressure and began Twittering just to see what all the buzz was about. I wanted to see if I'd actually enjoy it, and to see if it was really worth it.  It's been about 3 weeks now, and low an behold, I'm actually enjoying Twitter.

If you're kinda new to the Twitter world, here is the best way I can describe it:  It's a social networking site much like Facebook or Myspace, but the simple question it asks is: "What are you doing?"  Each twitter post has to fall within 140 characters.  So, you simply give quick, micro-burst updates to your life.  It's the kind of thing you update throughout the day with little remarks about what you're experiencing.  So you can follow people you know (or even people you don't know), get updates on what they're up to, you can let your "followers" know what you're doing or experiencing, and in a weird sorta techno-way, you stay connected with each other, and get connected with others.  There are about 6 million Twitter users now, and it's growing faster than any social networking site.

If you're anything like me, right now you're thinking "Why in the world would I want to do that?" 

Really Bizarre But Captivating Video

This is a video from Green Peace . . .

Helpless from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

A Few Videos I've Been Working On

A few years ago, I started doing alittle bit of video editing . . . just for fun, with a second-rate editing software, but it's something I've really enjoyed learning.  I've done a few projects over the past few years, but this last week I've had the opportunity to work on two projects that were pretty fun.  One was a promotional video for a couple at our church named Chris and Dawn Johnson, who lead a trip to Mexico with Amor Ministries to build houses for Mexican families.

The second video is a recap of our Wednesday evening baptism from this past week.  We wanted to create a short video to give our church family who couldn't make it an opportunity to gather the feel of the event, and hopefully help more people feel comfortable about possibly taking a similar spiritual step in their own lives.  Of course, now, that I finished the product, I realized that I got the date wrong on the opening scene . . . should be 2009, not 2008.  Oh well.   

Technical Difficulties With My RSS Feed

I discovered today that the RSS feed on my blog has been acting up.  I've been alittle lazy on my blog for the past month (only posting about once a week), so I hadn't really noticed, but yesterday I decided to get back on that horse and get cracking.  And today, I discovered that my Feed reader for my blog had not updated since December 25 (a month ago).  That's bad.

I think I figured out the problem though.  It was giving me an error message that my feed was "corrupt" or something, and I realized that the problem was one of my posts (a post I'd made on December 25).  I had copied a bunch of links out of Microsoft Word, and pasted them in my blog post, and whatever that copying and pasting did to the encoding of my blog site, my feed reader didn't like it.  So I deleted the post, tried to resubscribe to my blog, and it let me.  So I think, hopefully, I fixed the problem.

If you too have been experiencing problems accessing this blog via RSS Feed, you might try resubscribing.