Category: Of Random Interest

Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor, just lost his case in Supreme Court.

He was arguing that the Congress has overstepped its Constitutional authority through its abuse of the copyright system.

As an editorial aside, I’d like to say that I’m pretty disappointed by the defeat. I’m no expert in the law, but ministers are considered to have some expertise when it comes to morality (which ought to undergird the law).

The laws governing copyright in our society are excessive. First and most importantly, we are losing a public domain. Lessig’s (non-legal) arguments about the hypocrisy of Disney are very compelling–Disney keeps its copyright on Mickey Mouse despite making most of its money off reinventing characters that have passed into the public domain (Beauty & the Beast, Cinderella, Snow White, etc).

But that just deals with the longevity of copyright in America. I also consider that my fair-use rights are being infringed upon by rigid copyright schemes. To my knowledge, every empirical study has shown that electronic redistribution of products increases sales. You can read more about it.

For the record, I urge everyone to obey the law as it is written and to agitate for change in the meantime. 

Lessig will probably never read this, but I think he’s fighting a good fight.

I just redesigned the site navigational system using Flash. It should degrade gracefully (meaning that if you can’t run Flash, you should still be able to use the site).

Now that the site navigational system is in Flash, I can do some pretty cool things with it. I’ll try to restrain myself from doing anything too obnoxious (but I’d like to do some cool stuff that still loads quickly… feel free to post links to sites that you think use Flash well in the comments).

I’m still hoping to post some book musings soon. We’ll see…

This is so cool! I waxed nostaligic last week, and so I visited my old church’s website to see how things were going. While there I happened to glance at their ‘What We Believe’ page, and I noticed that it looked very familiar.

You see, when I began talking to Stanford students about Chi Alpha many were curious about our beliefs. I quickly realized that I needed a more student-friendly way of explaining our beliefs than the formal Assemblies of God statement of faith. So I thought about it and decided to revise and expand the one that we used to use back at SMS Chi Alpha.

In any event, I wound up writing a concise statement of faith for Chi Alpha @ Stanford. Lo and behold, it’s identical to the one on my old church’s website! I emailed Cal (my old pastor), and he said that he saw it and liked it so much that he decided to adopt it. Furthermore, he’s shared it with two other churches (Timbercreek and Timberline) that are considering adopting (or adapting it).

Since one of the things I get most excited about is sharing resources that help other people be more effective, I’m pretty happy about it! I’ve wanted to be a mean meme machine for the Kingdom…

I’ve done some tweaking of the site. Basically, I’ve changed the layout of the front page slightly, and I’ve updated the way I categorize information on the site to reflect a refinement in my thinking.

For several months now I’ve been explaining to people that there are three key ways they can be a part of missions (aside from becoming a vocational missionary), and I’m redesigning the site so that information is categorized accordingly. Most of my entries fall into one of four categories:

1. Intercession: Praying for Missions
My basic thrust in this section of the site is to encourage people to pray for us, and especially to pray what I consider to be the core biblical prayer for missionaries.

2. Investment: Giving to Missions
This section of the site invites people to partner with us financially, which is actually given more prominence in the Bible than is praying for missionaries. Many of the entries revolve around anwering people’s questions about giving to missions.

3. Involvement: Working for Missions
In addition to praying and giving, people without a call to full-time missionary work can frequently do things to help out. Within the Assemblies of God, this includes working with such missionary auxilliary ministries as Light for the Lost, Speed the Light, Boys and Girls Missionary Crusade, and the Women’s Ministries Missionary Boutique. This is a new section of the site, as I really didn’t have anything up about this prior to yesterday when I posted practical ways people can help.

4. Information: Learning about Missions
Finally, I added one category for entries that were relevant, but just didn’t seem to fit the above classification.

I haven’t completely finished revamping things yet, as I’m still thinking about how to handle the remaining categories and whether or not I should launch a personal blog (wherein I actually express opinions) in a subdirectory of this site. I express more of my personal interests and observations over at http://www.xastanford.org/, but there’s a lot of stuff I haven’t put there because that blog, like this one, is a blog with a purpose.

To give credit where credit is due, I got the categories from First Assembly of God in Des Moines, Iowa. I don’t know if it’s original to them or not.

Who are Wallace and Gromit, you ask? They’re wacky, they’re British, and they’re back! Find out all about them at the Wallace and Gromit Appreciation Page (or see the official W & G site).

One of the films is available online (the film is about two minutes long)!

Victorian supersleuth Sherlock Holmes has become the first fictional character to be granted an honorary fellowship by Britain’s prestigious Royal Society of Chemistry… The Society awarded Holmes a medal, which they hung around the neck of a statue of the detective. The man chosen to convey the honor was Doctor John Watson, a present day fellow of the society and namesake of Holmes’ hapless sidekick. (full story)

Interesting, but I wonder how the flesh-and-blood chemists who can’t gain entry feel now…

The Pope is outraged that a Russian individual rented church property and turned it into a brothel, complete with prostitutes dressed as nuns.

For some reason in puts me in mind of the LSJUMB and their relationship with Notre Dame. In case you didn’t know it, Stanford’s band has been banned from many campuses: at one time including the entire state of Oregon, Notre Dame (in perpetuity), and our own campus. That’s right–Stanford’s band was even banned from Stanford in 1997! (source)

In a very bizzarre story, some zookeepers have been caught eating the animals under their care.

When I read it, my mind flashed to Cain and Abel in the Garden of Eden. Cain killed his brother, and when asked about his brother said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

I can just see these guys, “Are we the animals’ keepers? Oh wait, yeah…”

Hmmm… The Onion has an article collecting the comments that many celebrities have made about God over the course of their interviews. 

Some were articulate, some were stupid, most were puzzled. A few were humorous, in a sad sort of way:

Chuck Palahniuk wrote Fight Club and four other novels, including the new Lullaby.
The Onion: Is there a God?
Chuck Palahniuk: Yes.
O: Care to elaborate?
CP: Boy. Let me get back to you when I’m dead.

and

Stand-up comedian Steven Wright is known for his deadpan delivery and absurdist one-liners.
The Onion: Is there a God?
Steven Wright: Ahhh… You’ll have to ask Jesus.

and the kicker

America’s greatest living writer, Neal Pollack is the author of The Neal Pollack Anthology Of American Literature.
The Onion: Is there a God?
Neal Pollack: God does not exist, unless you are my mother-in-law and are reading this, in which case I definitely do believe that He exists, and will raise my children accordingly. But if you’re not my mother-in-law, and she’s not reading this, then He does not exist.

Read them all.

Three Lego pages have caught my eye with their outlandish display of ingenuity.

The achieving the impossible award goes to the Andrew Lipson’s Lego Page, which features clever engines and reproductions of M. C. Escher works. That’s right–he’s recreated those impossible drawings in 3D.

The we could make beautiful music together award goes to Henry Lim’s Lego sculptures for his functional Lego harpsichord. Wow!

Finally, the service to humanity award goes to the Cool Lego Site Of The Week. Get your need for geeky Lego ideas met here!