Sunspots 755

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Computing: ListVerse tells us about 10 popular web sites/apps that started out as something considerably different. (Amazon used to sell books, nothing else, for example.)
National Public Radio reports on some sophisticated on-line scamming techniques.
Gizmo's Freeware describes a free program that easily downloads YouTube videos.
 
Education: Grammarphobia: Should it be Moses's staff, or Moses' staff?

The Panda's Thumb says that the Ohio lower house has passed a bill with some disturbing implications. To quote from the blog post:  House Bill 164, labeled the “Student Religious Liberties Act,” would amend the state’s Education Code to forbid schools from “prohibit[ing] a student from engaging in religious expression in the completion of housework, artwork, or other written or oral assignments.” The blog post points out that this would seem to prevent a teacher from marking an answer like this as wrong: "God told me that the capital of Ohio is Tallahassee."
 
Politics: Relevant says that Stephen Miller, influential White House advisor, has to go. He seems to be the driving force behind President Trump's immigration policies, which, among other things, have drastically cut the number of refugees entering the US, and tried to prevent all Muslims from entering the country.

Relevant also reports that the US detains more of its children in various facilities, than any other country.

Science: The Scientist reports on a study that indicates that very few children are the result of an extra-marital affair.


The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.
 
Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 748

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: The History blog reports that a painting by Cimabue was found in a kitchen in France. It will probably sell for millions.

Christianity: Christianity Today reports on another significant annual cut in the number of refugees that the US will receive, and points out that this announcement came almost at the same time that President Trump was extolling the value of religious freedom ad the UN. Many people, possibly including the President's (and my) ancestors, came to the US seeking religious freedom.
Christianity Today also has published another article on the effect of the cut mentioned above. It says that the results would be significant.


Computing: Relevant, and other media, report that men and women are not equal in how much they retain when reading the Bible digitally versus from a physical copy.

Gizmodo asks several experts what it would take to shut down the internet, if it could be accomplished.

Health: Gizmodo discusses the ins and outs of acne, and concludes that we aren't really sure how it works.

NPR reports that eating nuts every day helps prevent weight gain, and has other benefits.

Politics: Catherine Rampell reminds us of some of the ways that President Trump's actions, before and during his Presidency, have been driven by greed.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.
 
Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 658

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: Relevant lists five things we shouldn't say to our pastors.

Relevant also offers, and rebuts, several reasons why we don't volunteer.

Christianity Today reports that the government of Egypt is claiming that, for a Muslim, dying to protect a Christian church is worthy of martyrdom.


Computing: Wired has listed, with explanation, the most dangerous people (or groups) on the internet.

Health: (sort of) Listverse describes strange objects that have been removed from people's bodies. Very strange objects.

Humor: (or something) National Public Radio reports on Vanna White's 35th anniversary on Wheel of Fortune.


Politics: National Public Radio analyzes the number, and significance, of the laws signed by President Donald Trump, and compares them to laws signed by previous Presidents in a comparable period.

Science: Undark has posted an annotated list of misleading claims about science, by various politicians, during 2016,

Listverse gives summaries of the histories of 10 interesting numbers. I learned a number of things while reading this one.

I thank one of my brothers for suggesting some of these items!

Thanks for looking!

Image source (public domain)

Thanks, readers (or, at least, clickers)!

Blogger tells me that this blog has reached a milestone, that being over 500,000 page views. I know how the Internet works -- most of these visits probably did not result in anyone actually reading a post. But that's more than I deserve, no matter what a "page view" means. 

Many of these views were of one of the "significant posts" listed on the right. Feel free to visit any or all of them.

Thanks to all of you, whoever you are! To God be any glory.

Sunspots 495

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Christianity: Threads from Henry's Web, a blog, has some careful thinking on separation of church and state. (Notice that I'm not putting this in Politics, but in Christianity.)
A blog post about Contemporary Christian music, from a worship leader who has moved away from doing 100% of that in worship.
Computing: Relevant reports that there is a real college course, entitled "wasting time on the Internet."
Gizmo's Freeware reports on a free web site that will convert most any file format into something else.
Humor: Tom Magliozzi, co-host, with his brother, Ray, of Car Talk, a long-running National Public Radio show, has passed away. We miss him.
Why it's smart to wear the same outfit every day. (This seems to apply to men, not women, but what do I know?)
Literature: Speculative Faith on The Bible and magic. I hadn't considered that Elsa, from Frozen, is a witch, but I guess she is. The article doesn't condemn Frozen. It does point out specific uses of magic that Christians should avoid.
Science: Wired reports on the winners of a contest on the best photos of microscopic objects.
Sports: Caroline Wozniacki, tennis star (she came in second in this year's US Open) ran in the New York marathon, and did well, in spite of never having run the entire distance at one practice session before. How good would she be if she really practiced?


 Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 489

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Christianity: It's not out yet, but here's a blog post warning Christians not to take the Left Behind movie too seriously.
A splendid lecture on how God is seen through nature.
Computing: Be careful of pirated e-books. Apparently, some of them can hack your Amazon account.
Relevant has posted a map showing all the web-connected devices on the planet. Interesting, but perhaps not terribly surprising -- web use is concentrated in a few places.

Science: One of the advantages of being sexual is that the offspring have new and unique combinations of the genes of their parents. But Wired reports on a microscopic organism that takes such recombination much further than any other known living thing.
Wired also reports on a parasitic worm that invades the eyestalks of snails, so it can be eaten. Really. There's a short video.
Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 473

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: Rebecca LuElla Miller points out that The Wizard of Oz is not Christian literature (and the movie isn't Christian, either).
Computing: Gizmo's Freeware recommends a quick and easy text editor, Jovial, which produces files in Rich Text Format. It's easy to enter some commonly used non-keyboard characters.
Gizmo's Freeware also has an annotated list of on-line sites for seeing if some of that stuff on the Internet is really true.
Wired says that Facebook is (I am not making this up) going to listen to the TV you are watching, and then keep track of what you watch. Hmmm.
Humor: How to stop children from sneaking into the candy supply.
Politics: The Veteran's Administration and Military Health Care aren't the same thing, National Public Radio tells us. Both are important, and both have their problems. (The recent publicity has involved the VA.)

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 471

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: There really is a book named Amish Vampires in Space. And, according to this review, it's not nearly as bad as the title would suggest.
Christianity: Ken Schenck discusses the matter of disagreements between Christians.
Computing: Gizmo's Freeware points us to a service that lets you selectively print only the parts of a web page that you want printed. It also lets you save the important parts as a .PDF file.

The Huffington Post reports on producing your own make-up -- yes, lipstick, and whatever else -- with a 3-D printer, and what that might do to the cosmetics industry.

Google, in Spain, has lost a court battle that may influence the results of "googling" someone. It may affect the whole world.
Science: Wired reports on moths that look like wasps.
The Panda's Thumb reports that scientists have taken the first steps toward adding to the possibilities of the genetic code -- adding two new Nitrogen bases, in addition to the usual A, C, G and T.

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 468

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:


Christianity: We are less religious than we used to be, and National Public Radio reports on a study that says that the Internet is partly to blame.

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware recommends SeriesGuide, an Android app that gives information about upcoming TV shows, and more.

USA Today reports that cheerful posts on Facebook affect others positively, and the effect is unexpectedly large.

Are you storing your files in the cloud? Be careful out there, says NPR.

Wired on how the stock market is rigged in favor of traders with lots of resources, and access to superfast information feeds, and on what one man is doing about this.

Health: Studying the genetics of the whooping cough (pertussis) germ has led to an understanding of how it became a dangerous disease, according to a report by National Public Radio.

Humor: (or something -- this is real) Wired reports on 21st century California gold miners, who are doing things the old-fashioned way.

Science: Wired reports on the Absurd Creature of the Week, in this case an axolotl, which can re-grow limbs, and never outgrows its larval gills. We may learn how we can regenerate lost body parts by studying these animals.

New Scientist reports that pregnant mice with damaged hearts (artificially damaged) may be helped to recover with the help of fetal-derived stem cells. Interesting.


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 464

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: Christianity Today has a review of Noah (the movie) with links to some other important reviews by Christians. (I haven't seen the film.)The reviewer concludes that two of the rumors going around about the movie are false. The characters do believe in God. It's not a flaming love nature, forget humans movie.
Christianity: A good article on "20 Things I wish I'd Known in My Late Twenties." (I'm past that, but most of the suggestions are still good)
Computing: Gizmo's Freeware has an article, "Twelve Really Useful Links You Need to Know to Stay Safe on the Internet."
From USA Today: "10 things you didn't know you could do with Android." (Phones, that is. And also some of them with an Android tablet.) And, yes, I didn't know about them. Some really cool stuff, such as unlocking the phone with your face . . .
Science: In God and Nature, a voice of reason on eating foods derived from Genetically Modified Organisms.
Wired has a Space Photo of the Day slide show.


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 436

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Computing: Time, National Public Radio, and many other news outlets report on Internet neutrality. Can, say, Charter, make, say, Netflix download more slowly, because they want to promote their own competing service? There's a court case.
Education: The Atlantic tells us why we should ignore the U. S. News & World Report annual college rankings.
Health: Fecal transplants are becoming an accepted treatment for some intestinal problems, says the Voice of America. Yes, inserting someone else's poop into your gut.
Politics: It's true -- the wealthiest are getting wealthier, and the rest of us are not, reports NPR. That's the wealthiest, as a group.
Science: Some great stuff this week. Wired has an article, with photos, about zombie ants, ants which are infected by fungi, which enter their brains and then alter the behavior of the ants.
National Public Radio tells us about insects that have gears that mesh -- see the photos and videos, if you don't believe this.
NPR has an article on how gelada baboons are closer to using speech than other primates. There's a "Listen to the Story" link, which you should use, on this page.

Image source (public domain)

I'm an information junkie. Are you?

I confess. I'm an information junkie. If I see part of a sporting event on TV, I want to know who won it, even if I've never seen the team, or individual, before. I listen to National Public Radio news programs a lot, and I often stay in the car after arriving at my destination, because I want to hear the rest of the story. I read a lot, on-line and in classical media. When the Watergate Hearings were on TV, I watched a lot of them. I didn't need to, but I wanted to. My wife and I have four information appliances in our home. I don't think we are ever actively using all four at once, but we often use two at a time, and occasionally three. Maybe you are like that. Maybe not. In this day of Twitter, texting while driving, libraries, magazine sales at the checkout counter, GPS devices, walking with earbuds in your ears, hundreds of TV channels, and lots and lots of on-line sites, including some apparently important ones that I've never heard of, a lot of people out there must be like that.

I guess I should stop and say that "information" has a technical meaning, or several such. I used an information appliance to look that linked source up, by the way.

Why am I like this? Why are you? I'm not sure. Part of it is that we need to know things for various reasons, such as to rear our children, do our job, study the Bible, converse with other people. Some of it must be that wanting to know things must be part of the image of God in us. Unfortunately, some of our information searching is sinful, however. Seeking out pornography, stealing someone's identity, finding out about things that we covet, when we don't need them, being a fan of the wrong sort of celebrity, seeking out stuff to gossip about, in various ways, are bending information hunger into wrong directions.

Am I ever going to see all of the sports events on TV, no matter how many channels I have at my disposal? Am I ever going to know all of the news being pumped out? Am I ever going to read all the books I've thought about reading? No. Neither are you.

Is that bad? Not necessarily. Most of the stories I can look at, in all kinds of media, have little value now. Almost none of them will have much importance ten years from now. Very, very few of them will have any importance in 2112.

There's a moral in that last paragraph. I need to pay attention to it. What's that moral? Ultimately, there's only one story that's of eternal importance. That's the story of Christ. He created, He sustains, He lived for us, died for us, was resurrected for us, and, by His death and resurrection, paid the penalty for our sins. He is now waiting for us. That story makes the Southeast Conference, National Public Radio, NBC, the local newspaper, all the magazines available at the supermarket, all the sites on the Internet, all the books in the library, all the tweets in cyberspace seem so insignificant that it's hardly worth paying attention to them, in comparison.

Thanks for reading. I hope that wasn't too much information!

How to report a cybercrime

I have never been the victim of a cybercrime, and I hope you haven't, either, but some people have.

Gizmo's Freeware has detailed advice on how to report such crimes, to the FBI and others. The report is here. Stay safe, and thanks for reading.

Sunspots 379

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Wired reports on a study that shows that social connectedness as a teenager is much more important than academic achievement in adult happiness.

Sports: Syndicated columnist George F. Will says that football has gotten too big and too dangerous for the players.

The Arts: Rebecca Luella Miller, of Speculative Faith, tells us why fantasy is so appealing to so-called young adults.

Politics: (or something) National Public Radio reports that a book on Thomas Jefferson, by David Barton, has been pulled from their offerings, because of errors of fact.

Computing: Fox News reports that the bad guys use suddenly popular searches (related to some scandal, for example) as a way to mess up our computers.

Christianity: From the BioLogos Foundation, a brief summary of the history of how Darwin was received by Christians, in his own time. By no means all Christians were hostile. (Some were.)

Image source (public domain)

iGoogle is going away: alternatives that may work

iGoogle has been our home page for perhaps 5 years -- the default web page shown when a browser cranks up. It may be yours, too. Favorite links, an appointment calendar, weather in places all over the country, top news stories, schedules for movies showing locally, and more. What's not to like?

Google tells me that iGoogle will not be available after November 1, 2013.

What are the alternatives? One is to just use my browser.

But there are more full-featured possibilities. Here are some that I found, with a little searching. I haven't tried any of them yet, so I'll just list them, with no annotation:

Netvibes

AllMyFaves

Protopage

MyYahoo!

MyHomeMSN

uStart

I hope one of them will work as well as iGoogle has.

Thanks for reading.

*  *  *  *  *
As of January 10, 2013, I have tried some of the above, but am now running FVD Speed Dial, which lets me set up a screen full of icons that I make, from the web site's web page. I have set my FVD page up to open automatically whenever I open a new tab. My FVD Speed Dial page can be synchronized across computers. The program is free, and works with both Firefox and Google Chrome.

Sunspots 375

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science:  Wired reports that long-entrenched thinking among biologists, that female animals select males with showy characteristics, is not entirely correct.

Sci-Tech Daily reports that cancer cells can produce up to five daughter cells, not the usual two, when they divide.

Computing: From Gizmo's Freeware, a Firefox add-on which lets you draw, or type, on a web page while accessing that page with Firefox. (I confess -- I haven't tried it.)

Fox News reports on the first photo ever posted to the World Wide Web.

National Public Radio tells us that senior citizens are using computers much more than they did a few years ago.

Christianity: 

Image source (public domain)

Warning: This may be addictive!

Wordle is an on-line utility which takes text that you enter (or it will get text from any URL with an RSS feed, such as a blog) and generates graphics randomly from the text entered. I'm just getting started, but you can tweak the font and the colors, or just let Wordle do it randomly until you get something you like, by hitting the randomize button.

Here's a sample:





























The sample is the first sentence above.

You can print your creation directly. To save it digitally, you have to take a screen-shot (Use the Alt and Print-Screen combinations) then paste the result into some program, preferably, but not necessarily, a graphics editor.

Thanks to Katherine for the tip. Enjoy!