Google SMS

Getting info from Google using text messages. Send a text to the phone number 466453 (GOOGLE) with a message like any below. You can try it out on their web page.

http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/mobile/sms/

Search Features	Example query
Local Listings	sushi 94040
Weather	weather NYC
Flight updates* New!	LH454 or AA 2111
Airline information* New!	United Airlines
Sports**	lakers
Movies***	the departed 94110
Stock Quotes	tgt
Glossary	define zenith
Zip Code	72202
Translation	translate hello in french
Driving Directions	pasadena CA to 94043
Web Snippets	g hubble telescope
Q&A	abraham lincoln birthday
Area Code	650
Froogle	price ipod player 40gb
Calculator	1 US pint in liters
Currency Conversion	8 usd in yen
Help	local

* Flights data is provided by flightstats.com

My Strange New Mexico

Funny stuff

http://www.mystrangenewmexico.com/

Who what of thought New Mexico had a snake whacking day like the Simpsons?

"In Alamogordo, in an even more unbelievable example, locals get together every April to round up every rattlesnake they can find, throw them into trashcans and buckets and cardboard boxes, and then kill and skin many of them to cook up and sell to the public. Those snakes that aren’t killed are goaded and harassed into striking at objects for the amusement of onlookers; vendors sell balloons which can be dropped into snake pits for the snakes to attack, and snakes are kicked along the floor or dropped while being used in tricks. On average about two thousand people a year attend this event, the Alamogordo Rattlesnake Roundup—which is combined with a crafts exhibit and a gun show—and over half of those collecting snakes admit to taking theirs from public lands. These snake hunters have gathered as many as one thousand snakes every year since 1986, mostly western diamondbacks, and as most of these rattlesnakes are not listed as endangered species, the area’s Game & Fish representatives do nothing to protect them."

Is it wrong that the above description of the event really, really makes me want to go?

[Simpsons]
http://www.answers.com/topic/whacking-day

Funny Kid Quotes

An email forward I received

JACK (age 3) was watching his Mom breast-feeding his new baby sister. After a while he asked: "Mom why have you got two? Is one for hot and one for cold milk?"

MELANIE (age 5) asked her Granny how old she was. Granny replied she was so old she didn't remember any more. Melanie said, "If you don't remember you must look in the back of your panties. Mine say five to six ."

STEVEN (age 3) hugged and kissed his Mom good night. "I love you so much that when you die I'm going to bury you outside my bedroom window."

BRITTANY (age 4) had an earache and wanted a pain killer. She tried in vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her Mom explained it was a child-proof cap and she'd have to open it for her. Eyes wide with wonder, the little girl asked: "How does it know it's me?"

SUSAN(age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups. "Please don't give me this juice again," she said, "It makes my teeth cough."

DJ (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked: "How much do I cost?"

MARC (age 4) was engrossed in a young couple that were hugging and kissing in a restaurant. Without taking his eyes off them, he asked his dad: "Why is he whispering in her mouth?"

CLINTON(age 5) was in his bedroom looking worried. When his Mom asked what was troubling him, he replied, "I don't know what'll happen with this bed when I get married. How will my wife fit in?"

JAMES(age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read: "The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked back and was turned to salt." Concerned, James asked: What "What happened to the flea?"

TAMMY(age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly, rather wrinkled woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for a while and then asked, "Why doesn't your skin fit your face?"

The Sermon I think this Mom will never forget.... this particular Sunday sermon..."Dear Lord," the minister began, with arms extended toward heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned face. "Without you, we are but dust..." He would have continued but at that moment my very obedient daughter who was listening leaned over to me and asked quite audibly in her shrill little four year old girl voice, "Mom, what is butt dust?"

Audio Bible

I've run into a situation a couple of times now where I wanted to help someone find a audio bible but the person don't own a computer or portable MP3 player. MP3 Bibles are cheap or free and often contain extra resources such as sermons. I think they are a great resource, but in some cases the person can't use them because he or she doesn't have a player. Alternatively, you can find audio bibles on audio CD. They take up 64+ CD's and generally cost over $60. Isn't there something in between?

Options

1. Check to see if the person has a DVD player and if it plays MP3 CD's - maybe this would work in some situations
2. Determine if there is a cheap portable MP3 player <$35 Which can hold the MP3 Bible contents generally <>
3. Use a CD Duplicator to create the 64 + CD's from a burned copy of an the MP3 bible. 64 Audio CD's themselves will cost less than $10 the problem is how long it will take to make 1) the initial burned copy and 2) the additional copies + labels. A couple of audio bibles I've seen allow you to make unlimited copies for non-commercial use, for the others just purchase an additional copy and package it with each set of CD's.

Find someone who already sells a combo of any of the above options for a reasonable price.

Update. E-bay has some cheap used (eg here, here) CD/MP3 player combos which could be bought for $15-$25 including shipping.

Huge smoke ring generator

Truth Project - Conference Schedule

Here's what to expect (view the conference agenda) ...

• Dr. Del Tackett teaching The Truth Project Curriculum
• Understanding and living the Christian worldview in daily life
• Knowing the nature and character of God
• God's design for all of life: work, science, family, government, art, ethics and more
• How to thrive in a hostile culture
• Participants will receive the complete DVD set of 12 Lessons. (These professionally produced DVDs are only available by attending Focus on the Family's The Truth Project conference.)
• Access to our password protected learning support site that features lesson outlines, bonus multimedia content, discussion forums, worldview articles and more
• Conference hours: Friday, 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and Saturday, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Upcoming Conference and Training Events:

Spring 2007

• San Antonio, Texas, February 2-3, 2007 (Trinity University)
• Sacramento, California, March 23-24, 2007 (Bayside Church)
• Kansas City, Missouri, April 13-14, 2007 (First Baptist Church of Raytown)
• Orange County, California, April 27-28, 2007 (Yorba Linda Friends Church)

Fall 2007

• Louisville, Kentucky, October 12-13, 2007 (Highview Baptist Church).

Other Planned Event Locations, 2007 (dates to be determined)

• Colorado Springs
• Phoenix
• Toronto
• Tulsa, Oklahoma
• Vancouver, British Columbia

Amazing Juggling Finale

Chris Bliss performing an amazing juggling routine.

Mozilla Virtual Patching

I've always wondered if you could create a useful "virtual" patch extension for Firefox. What I mean by this is real patches, or security updates are not released until their fully tested to not break core features or external plugins, and some security improvements involve creating new GUI's, and modifying default preferences, and the coders what to solve it "correctly" the first time at the root of the problem and not just band-aid the fix and have to solve it over and over again. But what about the time it takes to get a real "fix" and do it correctly? Between the time the problem is discovered and fixed it can take a few weeks for critical security bug and literally years to make some security enhancing fixes. What if I'm willing to live with a band-aid or imperfect GUI's between those times, in the name of security? What if a corporation is willing to live with these band-aid as well?

Design ideas
1. Simple extension where a user can optionally enable/disable security related prefs on a per site or global basis (like noscript but more granular and moving beyond javascript and plugins.). I believe Mozilla does have the ability to disable particular javascript commands on a per site basis, there is just not a GUI For it.
2. If possible I would not want to change the original code at all, just override functions externally (can I do this through an overlay? Like a wrapper class in a java filter, wrapping a function, changing its behavior as needed but not having to modify the original code) and allowing the altered functionality to be disabled or enabled per site. If the new/altered functionality breaks something you care about turn it off for that site.
3. If possible, do all of this using only cross platform languages, javascript, XUL, etc so someone doesn't have to continually recompile the solution for multiple platforms.

Update 1/1/2007:

I'm now wondering if this should be more of an library and API rather than a product. Then each patch will be javascript & xul files which call the api.

1. Use Cases (Some based on http://www.squarefree.com/2006/12/14/sgwant/ and http://www.squarefree.com/securitytips/users.html)

• HttpOnly
• Gmail contacts vulnerability

http://cyber-knowledge.net/blog/2007/01/01/gmail-vulnerable-to-contact-list-hijacking/

• block known bad sites by default as black list or white list
  

2. Functionality required from API

• warn or Blacklist/whitelist specific domains
• warn or Blacklist/whitelist Block specific pages
• warn or Blacklist/whitelist specific URL Parameters
• warn or Blacklist/whitelist specific POST Parameters
• Encrypt specific param values or cookie values so they become useless to scripts, but get decrypted before being sent back to the server
  
• Scan params for cross site scripting type code, (javascript, SQL, etc)
• limit get/posts and specific params to particular URL's by referrer
• Clipboard monitoring???

Existing functionality to study

httpOnly-extension
noscript-extension
adblock-extension

Configurable Security Policies
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/components/ConfigPolicy.html

Cheap ways to stay warm this winter

Check out this link from the Get Rich Slowly Blog

Examples from the page.

1. * Let in some light. Open blinds on south-facing windows during the day to let in the sun. Close them in the evening to add a bit more insulation. This provides just enough mid-day warmth that we don’t need the heater.
2. * Use rugs on bare floors. We have hardwood floors above a poorly-insulated basement. These floors are cold in the morning and the late afternoon. An area rug does a fine job of keeping my feet warmer.
3. * Block drafts. This is best done with weather-stripping or other forms of insulation, but even a blanket in front of a door helps. Because our house is so old, nothing is level. This makes it difficult to install weather stripping. The bottom of our mudroom door, for example, has a one-inch gap on one end but is flush with the floor near the hinge. By laying a blanket in front of the door, we can mitigate some of the heat loss.

etc.

Biblical Dating - An Introduction

Biblical Dating: An Introduction

Beginning of a series of articles on Christianity and dating. Scott Croft attempts to address how to apply Biblical principals to find a person to marry.

Excerpts from the article ....

Biblical Dating

OK. Let's take care of some basic definitions. We may define biblical dating as a method of introduction and carrying out of a pre-marital relationship between a single man and a single woman:

1. That begins (maybe) with the man approaching and going through the woman's father or family;
2. that is conducted under the authority of the woman's father or family or church; and
3. that always has marriage (or at least a determination regarding marriage to a specific person) as its direct goal.

....

Modern Dating

We may basically define modern dating as a method of introduction and carrying out of a pre-marital relationship between a single man and a single woman:

1. that begins with either the man or the woman initiating with the other;
2. that is conducted outside the formal oversight or authority of either person's family or church; and
3. that may or may not have marriage as its goal and is often purely "recreational" or "educational."

Crisis Counseling - What to do or not to do

These items are quoted/paraphrased from the "His Presence in Crisis Evangelism Conference" Training Guide by Billy Graham Ministries. These are things to not say immediately after a crisis to the person you are counseling.

Do Say

1. These are normal reactions to a disaster.
2. It is understandable that you feel this way
3. You are not going crazy. This is just a abnormal situation which is beyond your ability to cope [right now].
4. (If the statement is true.) It wasn't your fault. You did the best you could.
5. Things may never be the same, but you will get better and you will feel better.
6. Would you be willing to tell me how you feel?
   

Don't Say

1. It could have been worse.
2. You can always get another _______ (pet, car, house, spouse, child).
3. It's best if you just say busy. (Don't use over-working to self-medicate and so avoid dealing with the problem).
4. I know just how you feel.
5. You just need to get on with your life.

Luffa Sponge Garden

Who knew that a luffa sponge was a vegetable?????

GroovyGreen.com - Start Today :: Save Tomorrow : Blog Archive : How To Make (and grow) A Luffa!:

"For the third autumn in a row I am pleased to be harvesting my shower sponge for next year. Now I know that must sound like a strange statement but it’s true. Many people are surprised when they find out I grow my own Luffa sponges. “Don’t those come from the sea?”, is the standard question to which I respond that the Luffa is a vegetable you can grow in your very own garden."

Despair.com

De-Motivational Videos

Satire on what not to do in the office.

http://theater.despair.com/disconfirmationwmv.html

http://theater.despair.com/powerofstorieswmv.html

http://theater.despair.com/013006icbwwmv.html

Memo to Bosses

Do's and Don'ts of being a good boss.

Huge list of 100 item - here are a few.

1. Make your employees come in on their days off even when you know there is no real work to be done.
2. Call them when they are on vacation, not unless the office has burned down, in which case the call is moot anyway.
3. Be biased, play favorites or show partisanship when dealing with your subordinates.
4. Hog your employees’ limelight, or more specifically, take credit for ideas that are not yours.
5. Monitor every aspect of your employees’ work. Peering over their shoulders every few minutes, or worse, hooking up hidden nanny cameras to spy on them in your absence is as good as wearing a sandwich board saying “Hate me, I deserve it”. Remember, just as a watched pot never boils, an over-supervised employee’s creativity and productivity are stifled.

Serial Hybrid Cars from GM

KurzweilAI.net

EcoWorld, November 19, 2006

General Motors has announced plans to sell a serial hybrid car, with a prototype available early next year.

A serial hybrid means that the car has two engines, but only one engine is connected directly to the drive train, hence it is a "serial" hybrid.

It is less complex than conventional hybrid cars, because only the electric motor, with its huge range of usable RPM, is connected to the drivetrain.

Another huge advantage is that serial hybrid cars have their second motor, a small, ultra-low-emission gas or diesel engine, connected to a generator to recharge the battery pack while the car is being driven. By doing this, a cheaper and more reliable battery pack can be used, and there is no need for a complex heat management system.

Read Original Article>>

Should Google Go Nuclear? Clean, cheap, nuclear power (no, really) - Google Video

Should Google Go Nuclear? Clean, cheap, nuclear power (no, really) - Google Video:

"ABSTRACT This is not your father's fusion reactor! Forget everything you know about conventional thinking on nuclear fusion: high-temperature plasmas, steam turbines, neutron radiation and even nuclear waste are a thing of the past. Goodbye thermonuclear fusion; hello inertial electrostatic confinement fusion (IEC), an old idea that's been made new. While the international community debates the fate of the politically-turmoiled $12 billion ITER (an experimental thermonuclear reactor), simple IEC reactors are being built as high-school science fair projects."

Dr. Robert Bussard, former Asst. Director of the Atomic Energy Commission and founder of Energy Matter Conversion Corporation (EMC2) is presenting to Google. Dr Bussard is in need of $200 Million to produce a full size Fusion reactor using a style of fusion abandoned by most researchers 20 years ago. But Dr. has been working with a team quietly and without publication for 17 years attempting to make the technology viable.

This sounds like a project for the Google Foundation

Hotel Rwanda

http://www.calvaryabq.org/events/event.asp?EventID=469

Join M88 and KNKT for a FREE movie.

Ten years ago, as the country of Rwanda descended into madness, one man made a promise to protect the family he loved--and ended up finding the courage to save over 1200 people. Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in Rwanda, secretly used his position and intelligence to shelter over a thousand refugees during the genocide crisis. While the rest of the world closed its eyes, Paul opened his heart to prove that the human spirit can make us stronger than we’d ever imagine.

When:	Saturday 11/18/2006 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Where:	Lobo Theater

Are You a Man of Prayer?

Are You a Man of Prayer?

Interesting Article on Men and prayer in America

by Jim Clayton

'The sheep are never so safe from the wolf as when they are near the shepherd.' - Charles Spurgeon

Fast Facts: Although 90% of Americans say they pray (60% say they pray every day), the ways they pray vary significantly, according to pollster George Barna. Two out of three unchurched Americans (63%) pray regularly, but only one out of three (34%) is sure that praying makes any difference. In contrast, nearly 70% of the 'born-again' respondents think God personally responds to their prayers."

Sample Accountability Partner Questions

This is a list of sample questions for an accountability partners. I'm unsure where they originally came from but they were given at R at church a few weeks ago.

Update: These questions are from the Men of Integrity Web site. The lists on this site are good as well.

SAMPLE ACCOUNTABILITY QUESTIONS

Regardless of the accountability questions you choose, the last question should be "Have you been truthful about everything we have discussed?" There will be times when that question is necessary, and true accountability demands it.

- Have you spent time with God on a regular basis?
- Have you compromised your integrity in any way?
- Has your thought life been pure?
- Have you committed any sexual sin?
- How much time did you spend in prayer this week?
- Did you pray for the others in this group?
- Did you put yourself in an awkward situation with a woman?
- What one sin plagued your walk with God this week?
- Did you accomplish your spiritual goals this week?
- Are you giving to the Lord's work financially?
- How have you demonstrated a servant's heart?
- Do you treat your peers and coworkers as people loved by God?
- What significant thing did you do for your wife and/or family?
- What was your biggest disappointment? How did you decide to handle it?
- What was your biggest joy? Did you thank God?
- What do you see as your number one need for next week?
- Are you satisfied with the time you spent with the Lord this week?
- Did you take time to show compassion for others in need?
- Did you control your tongue?
- What did you do this week to enhance your relationship with your spouse and/or child(ren)?
- Did you pray and read God's Word this week? What did you derive from this time?
- I what ways have you stepped out in faith since we last met?
- I what ways has God blessed you this week? And what disappointments consumed your thoughts this week?
- Did you look at a woman in the wrong way?
- How have you been tempted this week? How did you respond?
- How has your relationship with Christ been changing?
- Did you worship in church this week?
- Have you shared your faith this week? How?
- What are you wrestling with in your thought life?
- What have you done for someone else this week?
- Are the "visible" you and the "real" you consistent?

Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide

Article on beating newbies in Rock Paper Scissors - and no this isn't a joke, the tournament seems to be real.

With the 2006 World Rock Paper Scissors Championships coming up in November in Toronto and $10,000.00 on the line (not to mention bragging rights of being able to call yourself "World Champion of RPS"), trying to get some sort of edge on your competition is becoming a focal point for a lot of players.