Author: Nathan Campbell

Nathan runs St Eutychus. He loves Jesus. His wife. His daughter. His son. His other daughter. His dog. Coffee. And the Internet. He is the pastor of City South Presbyterian Church, a church in Brisbane, a graduate of Queensland Theological College (M. Div) and the Queensland University of Technology (B. Journ). He spent a significant portion of his pre-ministry-as-a-full-time-job life working in Public Relations, and now loves promoting Jesus in Brisbane and online. He can't believe how great it is that people pay him to talk and think about Jesus. If you'd like to support his writing financially you can do that by giving to his church.

HaikuLeaks: Wikileaks in Japanese poem form

Some people out there aren’t big fans of Haikus. Those 5/7/5 Japanese poems. I am not some people. I even resigned my job with the power of Haiku. So I’m impressed with this website that searches the wikileaks site for naturally occurring haikus. Like these:

Instead, he gulped three
cans of Coca-Cola while
inhaling his food.

He added that there
should be ‘no blank checks, no checks
at all,’ for Hamas.

The vessels are met
either on shore or a short
distance off the coast.

It uses a snippet of code that you can run over any text you want. Which you can get here.

Tumblerweed: Muppets with people eyes…

Freaky.

Seriously freaky.

More here. If you dare.

Six fun things to do with your new video camera

Did you get a video camera for Christmas? Wondering what cool projects you can use it for? I have some answers. Six, in fact.

Buy a sword. Attach it to the end.

Set yourself up as a first person shooter.

Do the (previously posted) third person car set up (language warning)

Attach the camera to a big helium balloon and send it into space (dizziness warning)

Follow this instructable and see yourself in third person. Computer game style.

I didn’t get a video camera for Christmas – but I did get one just before we went overseas. And I got a remote controlled helicopter (like every other male child adult this year). I don’t know how it would go if I attached one to the other… but here’s a purpose built cameracopter – that can be controlled by the power of iPhone. Which is awesome.

My dad: By Simone

Beer Art: painted in beer

This is cool. An artist named Donna Munsel produces/paints art using beer (amongst other things – here’s her portfolio).

Minimalist Muppets

Can you pick these muppets?

Available as prints and stuff here.

Comic Sans Criminal: Sign the Pledge

This is a nice bit of anti-Comic Sans propaganda – comicsanscriminal.com – that you should be aware of. Especially if you are a church. Please delete that font from your computers. There is no good reason to be using it in 2011.

Keep this in mind:

Although, apparently it is good for dyslexics.

You can even sign this pledge at the end.

Lightning, camera, action

This is an amazing photo of lightning. Taken by a camera that can capture images at one-sixth the speed of light.

Pretty cool. Because they also fired rockets into storm clouds with some wires to trigger the lightning.

“The rockets trailed wires behind them to direct the lightning through the camera’s field of view. Artificially triggering the lightning strike likely didn’t alter the natural workings of the thunderstorm, Dwyer noted. And, he said, “the advantage of triggered lightning is that we can repeat it.”

Wow. More details here.

2010 according to Google

Nice video.

Containing some subliminal adverts for Google’s products.

Cloud control

We haven’t had to watch the weather radar at the Bureau of Meteorology this week. It has been pretty obvious that it has been raining, and that the rain was going to stick around.

But this XKCD comic was too timely not to post.

From XKCD.

Noughts and Crosses: Free will or determinism?

XKCD tackles the big issues. As you can see, from this little examination of the possible moves in a game of noughts and crosses.

From xkcd.

Font Funnies

If fonts were people/super heroes.

From College Humo(u)r…

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Funniest letter response ever

I’m filing this for “response letters I’d like to send one day”… there’s a slight language warning. Via DeadSpin.

Here’s the transcript of the original letter:

“Gentlemen:

I am one of your season ticket holders who attends or tries to attend every game. It appears one of the pastimes of several fans has become the sailing of paper airplanes generally made out of the game program. As you know, there is the risk of serious eye injury and perhaps an ear injury as a result of such airplanes. I am sure that this has been called to your attention and that several of your ushers and policemen witnessed the same.

Please be advised that since you are in a position to control or terminate such action on the part of fans, I will hold you responsible for any injury sustained by any person in my party attending one of your sporting events. It is hoped that this disrespectful and possibly dangerous activity will be terminated.

Very truly yours,

Roetzel & Andress

By Dale O. Cox”
Here’s the response the team sent:

“Attached is a letter that we received on November 19, 1974. I feel that you should be aware that some a*&#&$ is signing your name to stupid letters”

My Cricket Clearance List

This is, in order, who I’d get rid of from the Australian cricket scene if I could.

1. Ricky Ponting. Can’t bat (anymore). Can’t captain.
2. Bill Lawry. The most annoying commentator in the world.
3. Mark Taylor. Only just beaten by Bill Lawry. These two have ruined my summer almost more than Ponting.
4. The selectors. Seriously. Get some new material.
5. Mitchell Johnson. Bowls well sometimes. Doesn’t know what he’s bowling the rest of the time.
6. Michael Clarke. Doesn’t seem to be able to see the ball most of the time.
7. Phillip Hughes. Needs some time to get his head right.
8. Peter Siddle. Hard worker, gets wickets eventually, but seems to lull opposition batsmen into form with his boringness and stupid goatee.
9. Ben Hilfenhaus. How long can we carry this guy? Has done so little that I almost forgot that he was in the team.

Buy Your Plastic Jesus

I’m sure some people could find some use for this commercial for a non-existent Jesus action figure (there are real ones out there).