A Singer, A Song

No more, my God, I boast no more
Of all the deeds that I have done;
I leave the hopes I held before
To trust the merits of Your Son.

Chorus:
So I’ll come to You and rest
From my so-called righteousness.
I will cease my striving and put my hope in Jesus.
Trusting in His work for me.
I’ll rest in Christ.

By sov’reign love I bear His name,
What was my gain I count my loss.
My former pride I call my shame
And nail my glory to His cross.

The finest works of my own hands
Dare not appear before Your throne:
But faith can meet Your law’s demands
For Jesus’ deeds are now my own.

Isaac Watts / David L. Ward

There’s been a lot of negative press lately about gamers and gaming. I myself am not a hardcore gamer, but my ISTJ bent makes me pretty much hardcore when it comes to injustice. So it’s nice to see someone clearly illustrate that good and bad (in this case good) can be found among gamers just as much as those traits can be found in any segment of society.

Go read Gamer Risks Life to Save Nephew over at kotaku.com.

If the science and engineering behind it is sound, the next big thing to hit the American auto industry could be utterly revolutionary:

Company officials want to make the first air-powered car to hit U.S. roads a $17,800, 75-hp equivalent, six-seat modified version of MDI’s CityCAT (pictured above) that, thanks to an even more radical engine, is said to travel as far as 1000 miles at up to 96 mph with each tiny fill-up.

Read more at Popularmechanics.com.

In the tradition of lolcats, the Internet community has now spawned Fail Dogs:

 http://faildogs.com/

Recently someone asked me for a list of books that were instrumental in the transformation we’ve gone through since July. I sent him a quick title/author listing, and then what does my wonderful wife do? She goes and posts a kind of annotated bibliography with helpful commentary and insight.

But be warned: those books will change your life. Guaranteed.

From Business Week: Social Media Will Change Your Business

It’s time for a frank talk. And no, it can’t wait. We know, we know: Most of you are sick to death of blogs. Don’t even want to hear about these millions of online journals that link together into a vast network. And yes, there’s plenty out there not to like….

Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they’re simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they’re going to shake up just about every business—including yours. It doesn’t matter whether you’re shipping paper clips, pork bellies, or videos of Britney in a bikini, blogs are a phenomenon that you cannot ignore, postpone, or delegate. Given the changes barreling down upon us, blogs are not a business elective. They’re a prerequisite.

For those of you BJU employees who tend to agree with the theology that Camille and I have embraced but who, after watching us get the boot, have since decided to keep your mouths shut, take heart. The State of South Carolina has at least one law on the books that addresses the assault or intimidation of those who exercise “religious freedom” as guaranteed in the United States Constitution. The first law under Crimes and Offenses, is 16-17-560:

Whoever shall assault or intimidate any citizen because of political opinions or the exercise of political rights and privileges guaranteed to every citizen of the United States by the Constitution and laws thereof or by the Constitution and laws of this State or, for such reason, discharge such citizen from employment or occupation or eject such citizen from a rented house or land or other property shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, on conviction thereof, be fined not less than fifty nor more than one thousand dollars or be imprisoned not less than three months nor more than one year, or both, at the discretion of the court.

Not making any recommendations, mind you. I’m no lawyer. But if you’re inclined to speak openly about your particular theological bent, and if your words just happen to run counter to the officially-sanctioned position, BJU can’t oust you without running cross-ways with the law.

I’m just sayin’.

I found a video on YouTube this morning that looked intriguing. It’s of The Singing Ringing Tree, “a musical sculpture set in the landscape of the Pennines overlooking Burnley, in the north west of England” (Wikipedia).

Pretty cool, but the audio is a little ambiguous. So I clicked around and found this one:

No good. Too much wind. Then I found one titled “Singing ringing tree plays a decent tune for a change.”

Now that’s impressive!

Apple has launched a new section of its website called “Find out How” that offers dozens of how-to videos on OS X Leopard for people who are more accustomed to using Windows. In addition to the videos on using Mac OS X, it also offers tutorials on creating and managing photos, movies, Web content, music and documents. The videos are short, lasting only a few minutes at most. There’s also information on buying and using “virtualization software” from Parallels or VMware so that you can simultaneously run separate windows for each OS (something that I’ve done on my MacBook — it’s amazing).

My personal take on this as a formerly die-hard Windows user: If you’re about to purchase a computer for yourself, buy a Mac. Being able to leverage a virtualized installation of Windows on a Mac is, without question, the battle that will eventually win the OS war.

Click here to visit ”Find out How” on Apple’s website.