I had to smile at this:



This car is the NmG (stands for “No More Gas” ). You can read about it here. It’s not a hybrid; it’s pure electric. Goes about 30 miles on a charge, so is mainly suited for buzzing around town. Seats one, so you’ll have to get a separate NmG for each passenger. Fortunately you can park four of them in a standard parking space.

I wish we can a couple of these at 3ABN!

Someone sent these to me. Since I'm not one for sending lots of e-mail forwards, I decided to post it here.

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
—Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. —George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. —G. Gordon Liddy

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. —James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. —Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. —P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. —Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801–1850)

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. —Voltaire (1764)

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.   —Mark Twain (1866 )

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. —Thomas Jefferson

Tags: humor, politics

If you're a Mac user, read on. Otherwise, please feel free to skip this one.

The second annual MacHeist promo is underway. This bundle includes more than $350 worth of applications, for only $49. Two of the three "locked" apps have already been unlocked in the first 3 days of the promo. And the third locked app is well past 3/4 of the way to being unlocked. And that's with 10 days left ... so it's pretty much guaranteed that all 11 (there's a chance a 12th will be added) apps will be unlocked and included in the bundle.

If you visit the MacHeist website, you will find a description of all the apps. Just click on their icons to learn more. The most useful ones in my estimation are 1password, Awaken, Speed Download, AppZapper, CSSEdit (if you edit websites), Snapz X Pro, and Pixelmator (which is not unlocked yet).



1password is helps you manage your passwords and much more. It does everything the autofill features of Safari and Firefox do, plus some other nifty things. You can create multiple identities — for example, one for work, one for home – and auto-fill forms from whichever identity you want. It can store secure notes on any topic you want. It has a "Wallet" feature where you can securely enter your credit card information and other personal details, to save typing them. It's quite flexible, and you can use as many or as few of the feature as you desire. (Personal details were obliterated in Photoshop from the image above.)



AppZapper provides the uninstall functionality that Apple should have built into OS X. Before deleting an application forever, it allows you to see, and selectively keep if desired, any files related to the application.



Awaken is a glorified alarm clock. You can enter as many alarm events as you like. These can play iTunes playlists or other media that you select. You can also launch applications or files at specified times. It also has an egg timer (countdown timer) and a sleep timer (go to sleep listening to music, and it eventually shuts itself off after the time you specify). The clock can be show full-screen (handy if looking at it from bed), and it can be controlled via an Apple remote.



CSSEdit is for the webmasters out there. It allows you to edit CSS files with all kinds of super cool features every computer geek will love.



Snapz Pro X is a screen capture utility. Besides simple screen captures, it can also capture specific program elements, selected screen areas, and — most impressively — movies and other things that change over time.



Pixelmator (not yet unlocked as of January 13) is a cool-looking Photoshop-type application for editing photos and other types of images. If you look at the screen shots, you'll notice it contains many of the same tools and features as Photoshop (Photoshop Elements is about $80 retail, Photoshop CS3 is $620–$1,040 retail, depending on the version). Although it doesn't do everything Photoshop CS3 does, it appears to cover all of the most common tools and commands. And unlike Photoshop, it is designed exclusively, and optimized specifically, for OS X.

Speed Download was recently added to the bundle. I've been using this application for years. It's very handy if you ever have to deal with downloads over slow internet connections, or downloads that are difficult to start or finish.

Other applications in the bundle include CoverSutra (works with iTunes, requires OS X 10.5), Cha-Ching (financial app), iStopMotion (create your own stop motion videos — fun!), and TaskPaper (note-taking app ... a little underwhelming, but what can I say? ... a better app is OmniOutliner). There is also a hint that one or more additional apps will be added before this bundle offer is done.

Interested? Head on over to MacHeist and buy the bundle!

If you're wondering what this "MacHeist" thing is all about, it starts as a series of online puzzle games in the form of missions ("heists"). Those who complete the puzzle missions get other free apps, as well as discounts on the MacHeist bundle offered at the end. I completed all the puzzles this year (with help from other users ... the puzzles can be very tough), and came home with all kinds of cool stuff. You can read a fuller description of this year's puzzle goodies here.

Tags: software, mac, deal

This is so funny. A coworker shared it with me. A perfect example of a ditzy blond.

http://www.biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=4702

Choice highlights:

"I thought Europe was a country."

"Like, I know they speak French there — don't they?"

Her: "Like, I'm listening to what you're saying, but I'm only hearin' what I want to." Him: "That's just called being a woman."

Tags: video, humor

I've tried a number of mapping applications online. One of the coolest, of course, is Google Earth. But even Google Earth is a little lacking. For one thing, it does not have detailed maps of where I live.

Recently I ran across a site called Flash Earth. You can choose from a number of maps. I was happily surprised to discover that one of the maps includes fairly recent data of 3ABN and the surrounding area — the only one that I've ever seen with such detail. You can view that here. If you click that click, and click again on the dark area in the middle to dismiss it, you will see a cross-hair in the middle, centered on 3ABN's Production Center. The Call Center, Sound Center, Worship Center, and school are also visible. You can even see my apartment, but I'm not going to point it out. (Who knows who's reading this?) If any of my friends are interested, they are welcome to e-mail me, and I'll show you where it is. In the upper right corner is the little hick town of Thompsonville.

Tags: maps, 3abn

Check out this cool map that replaces the names of states in the USA with the names of other countries that have the same Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the respective state. (You may want to copy the main map onto your desktop, and view it from there. It's big.)

My own state, Illinois, apparently has a GDP comparable to Mexico.

The page also contains a number of spin-off maps, including one comparing life expectancies of states to those of other countries. Hmmm. Illnois is comparable to ... Kuwait.

Tags: maps

If you enjoy cosmic phenomena, you may want to stay up a bit late tonight. This evening and the next two days will mark the return of the Perseid meteor shower. The frequency of falling stars varies from year to year, but some estimates say there may be as many as 100 meteors per hour at the peak. You can read a detailed report on the BBC website.

We happen to be blessed with clear skies in southern Illinois this evening, as well no visible moon, both of which make for better viewing conditions.

You may also want to check out the free and excellent application Stellarium (available for Mac, Linux, and Windows). Among other things it will help you to visualize where to look, since it can show you in real time the position of constellations in the sky where you are, as well as planets, etc. (You need to input your latitude and longitude coordinates to make that work, of course. I believe it also includes a built-in database of major cities.) It is a very beautiful application, even if you have little or only casual interest in star gazing.

Tickle (www.tickle.com) is a website that offers all kinds of personal inventory tests (IQ, personality, etc.). Some months back I took an IQ test, and scored 152. I wasn't really expecting to score so high, and the test was easier than I would have expected for that result. But still, it's fun to say I got an IQ score of 152!

Tickle allows friends to share their profiles and view each other's test results. Click here for a link to mine.

Google Mobile is a cool service that lets you get all kinds of interesting information on your cell phone. Any cell phone with text messaging capability will work.

All you do is send a short text message to Google Mobile, and it responds with information. For example, you can type "weather 62890" and it will return the weather report for that zip code. If you've ever sent someone a text message, you'll have no problem with this. It's super easy.

Some of the answers provided by Google Mobile include: local restaurants, weather, directions, flight status, translation, and currency conversion. (A complete list is given on the page linked above.)

Check it out!

Lately I've been posting on multiple websites. Part of the reason is that I don't have too many subscribers on this website yet, and I want to take advantage of the publishing power of community websites like Xanga and MySpace, where many of my friends already have accounts. For now I am basically posting personal news on this website, and more explicitly Christian stuff on Xanga.

Today I posted an article "Help for Christian singles," that you might like to read. Just go to my Xanga home page (or, if you read this weeks or months later, you might have to go there and search for it).

I found this link the other day to a couple extracts from an essay by Albert Einstein. Although he makes no pretension of being a religious man, and seems to lack some key Christian concepts, I thought it quite intriguing that his views contain a lot of light (deeper than what I've heard in Christian circles lately), especially the two opening paragraphs. For example, consider this sentence: "A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving." How many Christians live by such a noble aim? These extracts are very short; do yourself a favor and check out the link above.

I suppose it takes a certain mind to appreciate Haiku Error Messages. First, a little explanation for the uninitiated of what haiku is: Haiku is a Japanese method of writing poetry. In its modern English form, it usually consists of three lines: the first 5 syllabels in length, the second 7 syllabels, and the final 5 again. It is nearly always free verse, which is to say it does not rhyme. These three lines form the complete poem. (This is a very important point, because if you go to the Haiku Error Messages page linked above, and read it as one long poem, it will make absolutely no sense. Each three lines is a complete, independent poem in itself.)

I learned haiku in elementary school, where it is often introduced as a way for children to get their feet wet in poetry. I may have enountered it later in high school as well. I find haiku fascinating, in part because of the discipline required to create a beautiful (or, in this case, witty) poem within such tight constraints.

Even if you have no interest in haiku or poetry per se, you might enjoy the clever wit expressed in these short verses. For example, perhaps you can identify with the writer of this haiku:

A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

In place of the plain old "This page cannot be found" website errors often seen, what if you were greeted with this?

The website you seek
cannot be located but
endless others exist

Some of the poems require a little inside knowledge, and may not make a lot of sense to everyone. But they're all very clever.

I first saw this picture in an online photo gallery, but the source was not credited, and it was combined with lots of other images, some photos and others clearly imaginary. It seemed too good to be true, so I dismissed it. But later I saw it again, with a proper credit and description. Turns out it is the waterfalls at Plitvicka Jezera National Park in Croatia. You can view the full size, uncropped picture by clicking here. It is amazing.

Paul Brians of Washington State University has compiled a comprehensive list of Common Errors in English. If you are confused about such subjects as whether it is correct to use "appraise" or "apprise," "tragedy" or "travesty," "discreet" or "discrete," then this is the site for you. It's a great resource for teachers, students, writers, professionals, or anyone who wants to improve their mastery of the English language.

This is one of the best optical illusions I have ever seen. If you like optical illusions, or would just like to understand human color perception better, head on over to the eChalk color perception demonstration page. There are three buttons at the bottom, each demonstrating a different illusion (although they are all based on the same principle). Just follow the directions on each page. The illusions are so powerful, that even once you see the "proof," it is hard to believe. But in fact it is just as the website states! If you have a color picker/sampler application on your computer, you can verify the conclusions yourself.

Even if you consider yourself "artistically challenged," you can now paint like the masters over at the website Mr. Picassohead. It's like a grown-up version of the classic toy Mr. Potatohead. Just select pieces from the categories on the left, and place them in the drawing area on the right. You can customize color, size, and more. When you are finished, you can submit your masterpiece to the online gallery, as well as browse the creations of others.

Back when I was a kid, I remember seeing ASCII computer art at my dad's office in the data processing department of the University of Alaska. Back in those days, most printers printed only text (most often using only the Courier font!), and nearly always in black and white only. Imaginative computer users with time on their hands created a method to make pictures with just letters. So hanging all around the department were these large posters printed from dot matrix (or maybe ball-based) printers, using letters, numbers, and punctuation to simulate shades in an image. Up close you saw alphanumeric characters; from a distance you saw a picture.

Well, now you can enjoy the same excitement by visiting the ASCII-O-Matic website! You need a JPEG (.jpg) image, of yourself or anyone or anything, exactly 60 x 50 pixels in size.

Here is what I look like in ASCII:



PS: ASCII stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange." It's a system where all the "standard" characters are assigned a number from 0 to 255. For example, the capital "A" is always at spot 65, and the lowercase "a" is always at spot 97. If you have a Windows computer, open a word processor and try typing ALT+065 or ALT+097 (holding down the ALT key and typing the three-digit number on the keypad). You've just typed an ASCII code! Is that cool or what? In fact, to this day the only consistent way to type certain special characters in Windows is to type their ASCII codes.

There are 256 ASCII character numbers (if you count the zero space) because one computer byte contains 8 binary bits, each of which can be toggled on or off, resulting in exactly 256 possible combinations of bits (i.e., 256 possible values). Computer programmers did not want to devote more than one byte to each character, so the 256-character limitation was imposed. Until Unicode was invented, virtually all fonts were based on ASCII, and every font face or style was limited to 256 characters (actually less, because certain characters are reserved for special uses).

If you use Skype, or have thought about using it, you might want to check out Gizmo. It's an open source
alternative to Skype (as Firefox is to Internet Explorer), and seems to have some interesting features. One is that the group behind Gizmo is offering free Gizmo-to-phone service. That is, you can call people's landline or cell phone for free (from your computer, via Gizmo, assuming your computer has speakers and a microphone—either of which can be picked up for $15-30 if you need one), provided you are both Gizmo members. Membership is free. Skype has a similar feature, but last I heard you have to pay by the minute for it, just as with regular long-distance calling.

Some time ago I ran across a fascinating article on the New York Times website, entitled "An Exhibition About Drawing Conjures a Time When Amateurs Roamed the Earth." That's not the kind of title that would catch the public eye on a supermarket tabloid. But the article itself was very thought-provoking. Below are a couple gems I gleaned, but you really ought to read the article itself. It's very short; you could finish it in five minutes. (NOTE: Unfortunately after I first posted this comment, they changed this page to paid access. But if you subscribe to the NYT, it is free.)

"The exhibition is full of such exhortatory books, many of them discomfiting today because they presume a degree of skill among ordinary citizens — even children — that would now be regarded as noteworthy in the art world....

"There was also a philosophical change, away from drawing as a practical endeavor and toward art appreciation. From dexterity and discipline to feelings and self-esteem: the shift in values is implied by some of the later books in the show. Consciously or not, they parallel changes in modern art, which threw out the rule books of draftsmanship and proposed a new, free-thinking attitude."

By leaving art to the "professionals," common people have lost not only the ability to express themselves in this way effectively (giving up the satisfaction of accomplishment therewith), but they have also lost to a greater or lesser degree their ability to appreciate the art and skill itself. It's another example of modernism's corrosive character, washing away the virtues of the very people its self-esteem doctrine purports to build up.

I get occasional emails from the organization Grassfire. Recently I received one entitled "End the Tyranny of the IRS." That seems to be a popular theme these days. Basically Grassfire is supporting a campaign to end the IRS completely and institute what is called the Fair Tax. I've read a bit about the Fair Tax from various sources, and it seems like a good idea. (However, I am no expert on these matters. I do firmly believe the IRS tax laws and the whole system is a convoluted mess.) If you'd like to know more or sign the Grassfire petition, click here.

"What would it mean to be able to listen in on other's thoughts? This idea has been a science fiction staple, but recent advances in imaging and neuropsychology are starting to make it look as if it might soon be possible." From the Quirks and Quarks website.

One of the podcasts that I subscribe to on iTunes is "Quirks and Quarks," a science talk show. I don't listen to every episode, but mainly the ones that especially interest me. This one titled, "Reading Minds," grabbed my attention. And it was definitely worth listening to. You can find a link to this particular program here. Prepare to be surprised and amazed, if not somewhat concerned. If you're the fun-loving type, pay particular attention to the small segment on "false memories," and to the word list that is given, and to the questions that immediately follow. I fell for this mental trick, and the explanation of why it works is quite revealing.

(If you aren't familiar with podcasts and would like to try this one, just download the free iTunes program and install it, run it, and configure it to your liking. Then once you have it running, click on the Music Store section in the left pane, and then in the "Search Music Store" field at the very top-right side of the window, type "quirks and quarks." The search may turn up related items for sale, but the podcasts are free, so look for the word "free" or "subscribe." When I last checked, the "Quirks and Quarks" podcast was at the bottom of the list. Of course there are thousands of other podcasts to choose from, virtually all of them free. You can browse them from inside the iTunes Music Store. If you are using iTunes for the first time, just be aware that the application's built-in advertising is mainly geared towards music albums and audiobooks that are available for purchase.)

Even computer geeks get into the April Fool's Day spirit. Today I was checking out some of the foolery that was posted over the weekend, and came across Google Romance. This is so great, you've got to see it. Be sure to do the tour. I love their intro.