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.

Off beat travel advice for travel off the beaten track…

I like this. Makes me want to go somewhere fun and exotic.

3. Steal soap from your hotel and give it to kids in developing countries as a present. Studies have shown that distributing soap to kids in poor countries saves lives. Travelers are always thinking up things to give to kids that ask for handouts (pencils, erasers, candies) but nothing beats the gift of clean hands. And don’t just collect 1 or 2 from your hotel bathroom. Hit the hallways while the cleaning staff are having a smoke and grab a couple handfuls from the service carts. When you’re saving lives, Go Big.

Cool list. Got any other novel tips for novel places?

December 6, 2011

Super Mario theme played by Accordion Trio

Yeah. This is a real thing.

Also, while we’re on the subject of impressive Mario related feats – here’s a stop motion of level 1-1 created in 500 hours of painstaking Mine Craft Play.

December 6, 2011

Terry Gilliam on animation and modern film making

Monty Python were, and are, funny. Terry Gilliam is, amongst other things, the man behind the animations in Monty Python movies… and possibly the inspiration for the animation style of South Park. I have no idea if that’s true – but the method he uses here is a bit like the method they use, only with slightly more detailed paper.

Here, an older, wizened, Terry Gilliam, takes a shot at Hollywood movie making, with Steven Spielberg in his sights.

He thinks happy endings are overrated, and stories should be real.

Here he talks about his approach to making movies.

Interesting stuff.

December 6, 2011

Tilt Shift Athens: Good real estate ad for a city going cheap…

I was here once. In Athens that is. Not on the Internet. But only for a day. It’s a great city with a pretty amazing history (and a fairly depressing present).

I love tilt shift.

December 5, 2011

Tumblrweed: Hipster Puppies

This pretty funny Tumblog seems to be a bit defunct now. Seems that’s what happens when you get a book deal.

But here’s what you’re missing out on…

And my favourite… a hipster puppy on a fixie.

December 5, 2011

It’s enough to make you miss Saigon: timelapse video of Vietnamese traffic

I’ve never been to Vietnam. Or Ho Chi Min City/Saigon… but this timelapse video of the frenetic traffic in the city is pretty amazing. Imagine learning the road rules…

December 5, 2011

Shirt of the Day: Self Descriptive Shirt from XKCD

I may have featured this before. But if you’ve got me in some sort of Secret Santa thing, or just want to buy me a Christmas present that I’ll enjoy… you could do worse than this XKCD special.

And on the back…

December 4, 2011

Those Mormon ads, and how to kill a high profile media campaign…

I just saw the first Mormon ad to feature high profile league player, and grand final winner with the mighty Manly Warringah Sea Eagles, Will Hopoate. Sharp. They’re a great ad for Manly. And, like all the ads in this campaign, are visually appealing and tightly produced.

There was a higher profile League star than Hopoate – Dizzy Izzy Folau. Israel has been out of the spotlight in the last year because he made a big money switch to AFL. To a team that doesn’t exist yet.

Luckily the Mormons didn’t feature Israel in their ads. Because he recently turned his back on the cult, publicly, during this campaign.

And here’s what he had to say… and that, friends, is how to harpoon a campaign.

“I had a personal experience with the holy spirit touching my heart,” Folau told AAP.

“I’ve never felt that before while I was involved in the Mormon church – until I came to the AOG church and accepted Christ.

“It’s been an amazing experience for me personally and I know a lot of people on the outside have been saying stuff about why we left.

“And some people (are) assuming that we left because of money, and all that sort of stuff.

“I know for myself that it wasn’t.

“But I guess at the moment, the people on the outside don’t really know the main reason why we left.”

The 22-year-old instigated the change himself after researching the history of Mormonism, and said the move was easy to make.

Folau’s friends have been understanding and supportive for the most part, but he admits it has been hard on a few of them.

God will play a large role in Folau’s life as he attempts to secure a berth in the Giants’ side for their season opener against Sydney.

December 4, 2011

The “cult of done” pretty much involves half doing things…

Productivity is a modern idol. So too “getting things done”… Me. I just like “being effective.” That’s what I’ve decided…

Here’s a proposed manifesto for the getting things done movement. Illustrated.

The Cult of Done Manifesto:

There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
There is no editing stage.
Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
Once you’re done you can throw it away.
Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
Destruction is a variant of done.
If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
Done is the engine of more.

What are your thoughts? Is prodigious production of products better than the production of polished products that do a job? I’m somewhere on that spectrum towards the polished product end. But I recognise that spending 80 hours on the last 20% of your product isn’t very efficient.

December 4, 2011

Dogs are the future of the Internet… and the planet

Ladies and gentlemen. I give you. Your future Dog President.

I laughed. Then I laughed some more. Beats the old stick your arms out from behind another person’s back trick…

December 1, 2011

Why your Youth Group needs to work on loving one another…

This is such a bizarre Christian propaganda movie…

December 1, 2011

National Geographic Photo Competition separates good photographers from great…

I know hundreds of good photographers (in the age of Instagram, everybody is “good”), and a handful of truly great photographers. Greatness is about more than having a nice camera and a good eye. There’s something ephemeral about the quality of thought and clarity of vision behind the photos in these entries to the 2011 National Geographic Photography competition.

Some samples…