Speaking of Choose Your Own Adventure books – Simone and her son Joel have produced a Choose Your Own Adventure blog. Check it out.
You should also check out Joel’s poetry if you have a moment…
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.
Bare essentials
This product – called Bare – is a conductive ink. You can put it on your skin and it’ll conduct electricity. This means you can turn your body into a circuit board. This is pretty cool.
“This innovative material allows users to interact with electronics through gesture, movement, and touch. Bare can be applied with a brush, stamp or spray and is non-toxic and temporary. Application areas include dance, music, computer interfaces, communication and medical devices. Bare is an intuitive and non-invasive technology which will allow users to bridge the gap between electronics and the body.”
They’re currently looking for artistic collaborators rather than selling it.
It looks cool.
Regretsy – the place bad etsy purchases go to die
Regretsy has taken on the task of documenting the crap sold on etsy for posterity’s sake.
St Eutychus coming soon to a language near you
By the power of Google Translate you are now able to read this blog in whatever language you are most comfortable.
There’s a box in the sidebar to help. And if you want to do this to your own site you should read how here…
You can add it to any website you want. It’s easy.
Tetris quilt keeps you warm and in the right place
If you’re struggling to lie in just the right spot this grid like Tetris blanket will help…
Ox off to the Bulls
Manly Captain Matt Orford is heading to England to play for the Bradford Bulls.
He led us to successive grand finals and won us a premiership.
But he has a crap kicking game.
I’d say I’m ambivalent about this piece of news.
Ironic Venn Diagram
Having dangerously used the word irony in a post today – and fearing the horde of angry pedants who swarm onto any use of the word irony they deem inappropriate – I made this graph on graphjam.
Here is what wikipedia has to say on the matter – that may provide some clarity…
Modern theories of rhetoric distinguish between verbal, dramatic and situational irony.
- Verbal irony is a disparity of expression and intention: when a speaker says one thing but means another, or when a literal meaning is contrary to its intended effect. An example of this is sarcasm.
- Dramatic irony is a disparity of expression and awareness: when words and actions possess a significance that the listener or audience understands, but the speaker or character does not.
- Situational irony is the disparity of intention and result: when the result of an action is contrary to the desired or expected effect. Likewise, cosmic irony is disparity between human desires and the harsh realities of the outside world (or the whims of the gods). By some definitions, situational irony and cosmic irony are not irony at all.
And in case you’re confused between sarcasm and verbal irony – because both have the same functional definition – here’s a helpful contrast.
Ridicule is an important aspect of sarcasm, but not verbal irony in general.
T-Shirt Appreciation Day: Guilty Secrets
So… umm… is this you?
Would you feel vicariously unclean knowing that a post you were reading was composed in such a manner?
Confess your blogging sins in T-Shirt form for just $22.95.
T-Shirt Appreciation Day: Irony explained
If you can’t get irony literarily right then at least you can get it literally right.
T-Shirt Appreciation Day: Irrational fear of sleeping
Unless you’re a little yellow almost-circle you can probably sleep soundly knowing that these ghosts won’t eat you. They don’t eat any of the fruit or the little golden orbs now do they?
This one is $26.50USD.
T-Shirt Appreciation Day: Stop evolving
Yeah. Cop that Neanderthal man. This one is $20.95USD.
Top five rules for blogging: #5 comment elsewhere
Blog readers don’t just fall from the sky… well that’s only partly true. A lot of readers come via Google. And they may as well fall from the sky.
To significantly boost your traffic you can do one of two things – you can write google friendly copy, or you can try to steal other people’s readers by getting involved in their blog community.
I don’t know how many readers I’ve pilfered from Ben and Simone – but I’d suggest the link love I score from them was a significant factor in my moving to more than 500 unique readers a week.
500 readers a week isn’t a significant number. I’m certainly not about to quit my job and become a full time blogger. But I’m comfortable with that. I think if I wanted to increase that figure dramatically I’d take one strategy – I’d comment on popular blogs. Particularly popular blogs that cover similar topics to mine.
Readership is only part of the picture. Blogging regularly can be tough. I think that’s why so many blogs falter. One of the things that makes it easier is the support of people who leave encouraging comments, and post links to stuff they like that you’ve written. You don’t get this sort of support unless you know the person in real life and as such want to see their blog continue, or you comment and share the link love elsewhere.
That’s my theory anyway.
November 16, 2009