Oh no… a mess of links…

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The following are just some items that caught my interest that I’m not talking about at Philly Future. Before I run off, let me recommend catching “Walk The Line”. A powerful movie on many, many levels. Richelle and I saw it the day before our anniversary, and it fit. See Hurt at VH1. It’s getting harder and harder to find this online, which is a shame, considering that this video, and his cover of the NIN original, moved me more musically, than anything in years. How does it make you feel when you watch and hear it?

A letter to the President

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Before you get in an uproar – this was not written by me – it was emailed to me. After looking up the passages in the Old Testament, and linking to them, it became quite thought provoking. In light of the news that certain chuches will be closed on Christmas… well I couldn’t help but post this.

This is probably a version of the oldie but goodie “Why Can’t I Own a Canadian?”

Anyways….

Dear President Bush,
Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from you and understand why you would propose and support a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. As you said, “in the eyes of God marriage is based between a man a woman.” I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination… End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness – Lev15: 19-24. The problem is how do tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev.1:9. The problem is, my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them . Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination – Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?

7. Lev.21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev. 24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Still here and happily busy

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There is only so much time in a day, and paradox1x, my personal site, has taken a hit since, well I have a day job that is unrelated to discussions I am involved in on matters related to the future of newspapers, actually, the future of news organizations. You can follow much of it here, which is already a couple days behind (some great articles and talks I have add to it right away) since the conversation is distributed across many blogs and email, and there is so much to think about and do.

I’ll be back with a link dump here later in the week. But until then, I’d like to invite you into the discussion. It has to do with journalism. It has to do with democracy. It has to do with technology. It has to do with community. It has to do with money. It has to do with blogging. It has to with trust and relationships. I’m sure you’ll see a reason to join in. Don’t be shy.

And yes – consider this a call out to my old EditThisPage friends 🙂 The new (well it’s not so new) Philly Future misses its old community. Come on by.

Speaking of email – if you are forced to use a webmail solution – how gmail handles conversations can be a lifesaver.

Music and movie related link dump

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Google Video: Randy Rhodes in Quiet Riot – except for Randy’s awesome guitar solo… my band smokes this version of Quiet Riot (they got far better by the time they got signed)… but Randy… unbelievable even then. He even plays a version of “Dee” in here! It made me cry when he slowed down and started to play those delicate passages. May he rest in peace.

Google Video: A killer Paul Gilbert guitar solo

Google Video: Canon in D Guitar: Wow, wow, wow

Google Video: Mario Guitar: Wow (not as awe inspiring as Canon in D – so just one wow)

the Onion: Metal Council Convenes To Discuss ‘Metal Hand Sign’ Abuse (hell ya!)

Please take the ‘Cool Person Test’

Wired: The Hit Factory: On MySpace and the future of music marketing

the smedley log: Give the music back (quoting lyrics to one of my favorite songs)

Matt at Philly Future: Creating Buzz: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on NPR.

ScientificAmerican: Creativity Linked to Sexual Success and Schizophrenia. via Garret.

And not music related, but why not:

Superman V: The Whole Sordid Saga: this script has been thru hell and ba… no… it still seems in hell

Guardian: The longlisted passages for the Bad Sex in Fiction award. NSFW and funny.

atom2rss: a poorly written Atom to RSS converter

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Not to vent, but Blogspot’s default of outputting Atom and no RSS for its users gave me all sorts of headaches. A huge expense in time that that drove me away from more important matters at Philly Future. CivicSpace/Drupal’s aggregator does not handle Atom. That means if you are on Blogspot, a site like Philly Future could not include you. An upcoming version of Drupal’s aggregator will have this capability. Bryght’s hosted Drupal solution does right now. However, I couldn’t wait for Drupal to release an aggregator with Atom functionality, and I’m self-managing Philly Future – so I needed my own solution.

A simple service that would, upon passing it a URL of an Atom feed, produce RSS, be best. That way I could avoid hacking Drupal code. A few folks suggested I use Feedburner, and for a while I did, until I read the terms of service. I was, inadvertently, claming I owned those feeds! Once I discovered this, I removed those feeds from my Feedburner account and found another way. After an exhaustive search on Google, I found a few Python implementations of what I was looking for, but no PHP. The hosted web services that I did find wanted to charge money, or warned they were to stop service at any moment. I had to do it myself.

Not that anyone needs converters like this anymore as most services and aggregators handle both Atom and RSS, but I figured it would be a good thing to release for others reuse, so here it is. Using the required Magpie RSS, the PHP RSS Parser library, it retrieves, caches, and parses the passed in Atom feed, iterates over its items, and outputs RSS. A brute force approach, certainly not perfect, nor complete in terms of the metadata it attempts to convert, but one that has worked for the great many Atom feeds Philly Future encounters.

Accessing the Newsgator API within PHP

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Shelley Powers published a short tutorial on accessing Newsgator via its API and PHP. I’m working with the code and fleshing out a wrapper library I hope to release shortly. I’m fairly sure using Newsgator judiciously will help alleviate the hosting problems I’ve been facing as Philly Future grows, and allow me to add some interesting new features. We shall see.

The start of a good day

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Last night one of my best friends, a sister really, Richelle’s best friend, had her baby girl. I can’t wait to see her today.

Now for a little bit of this, and a little bit of that:

Looks like Saturday’s blogger meetup was on of the best yet: see our fearless meetup czar Scott’s summary, see Albert’s, and Neo‘s.

Lisa Williams’s (of H2Otown) post, and its discussion at PressThink have open my mind to a few things. Check it out. I need to write a dedicated piece to tie it all together.

Shelley is considering buying a Powerbook. I want one too.

Doc Searls wrote a thought provoking must read in Linux Journal: Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes. Those quotes from Edward Whiteacre, CEO of SBC are ummmmm…. well glad I don’t work there. That’s all I’m gonna say.