One of the things I really hate is hearing broadcasters mangle common expressions. Especially when so many other people do. Here’s today’s grammar lesson (from here). 
The correct option is of course the bottom option. It makes much more sense. And you’re an idiot if you get it wrong.
Category: Communication
ATTN: Chavez plays air guitar
Auto tune the news (which I’ll acronymise to ATTN) is my new favourite YouTube feature. It’s very clever. Though I’m sure I’ll get sick of it soon. Here’s the latest…
Wave goodbuy?
I scored an invite to Google Wave thanks to Chris – though his blog is defunct and linking to it seems cursory at best.
It seems to be one of those products that will be good once it gets to a critical mass. There’s only so much fun you can have talking to your dad with both of you saying “is this working”…
Once people are using it to collaborate and share files and stuff it’ll be good.
It will just be dangerous if you accidentally type something in one wave that’s meant for another and the person you’re waving to sees it before you delete it. Typing comes up on the screen in real time. Without you needing to submit stuff.
That has the potential to be more embarrassing than reply all.
The interface is really nice and clean, and fairly straightforward. I’ve been flying blind – I haven’t watched any of the video tutorials yet – and so far it has been fairly simple to work out.
If you’ve scored a wave invite you can find my gmail address right at the bottom of the page.
How to write a book
One day I’d like to write a book. With the help of the character guide I posted a while back, and this helpful plot flow chart, my dream is a step closer to reality…
Grammar tips from Strongbad
I must confess that I haven’t watched a StrongBad email in a long time (possibly three years) I look forward to a day or two spent catching up on the archives. But StrongBad has been indelibly itched into my psyche whenever I’m trying to decide where to use apostrophes… particularly in the case of its v it’s.
Here’s a little song that will help you remember that when its is possessive it’s just i-t-s and when it’s a contraction it’s “i-t apostrophe s”.
That’s from this little collection of grammar songs.
I think I’ve posted this before (some time ago) – but it continues to be useful.
Giving notice
I was a little bit surprised that so many people spoke out in defense of announcements at church. I want to be clear that I’m talking about things that are generally covered in the “news” section of a church bulletin, and hopefully these days the church’s website and Facebook page*.
Announcements are dead wood. They should be cut. Like a pine forest. They should just be printed on literal dead wood.
I don’t buy into the whole “seeker sensitive” style service where everything is run for visitors and the people who are part of the church family are ignored. But if you’re spending 10 minutes reading out the handout that everybody is holding already** that’s 10 minutes of wasted time. You could, though I wouldn’t, fit three more songs or one long prayer in that time. There are myriad things that can be done in ten minutes that are more beneficial to church life than boring advertisements for things that are no doubt already boringly described in your boring newsletter.
You know what happens when church is boring – people fall out of windows and die. And Paul isn’t going to pop in and resurrect the poor souls that expire during your overly long promo of the church working bee.
* Here are some great tips from Mikey for how churches (and in fact any organisation) should use Facebook. He’s much better equipped than me to comment on this matter… I’ve only got 27 fans on my Facebook fan page after a week of relentless self promotion… you could become one now. It would make me feel special…
Here are some more Facebook friendly resources I found through Church Marketing Sucks… an e-book called “Facebook for Pastors” and a set of general principles on using Facebook for your business.
**And while I’m on that note – what’s with churches (not just ours, though it’s guilty here) being so miserly about the number of handouts they print. One per couple? Per day? Are you serious? My attendance isn’t worth 5 cents to you? You’re expecting me to “give generously” when the offering comes around and yet I have to share the handout…
I also miss handouts with sermon outlines written in them.
On simplicity
A nice reminder that perhaps you don’t need to pad your product or service with every feature imaginable.
This is how I think church services should be approached too. Get rid of the clutter and noise (like announcements) and just do the essentials.
From stuffthathappens.
Sign language: Friend request
Some church signs – like the famous St Barneys sign (that prompted a tit for tat with a pub) – start discussions amongst people, which I am sure they’re meant to do.
Some are stupid and do the church (locally and universally) a disservice.
I remember around election time in Brisbane a few years ago a church had “give to God what is right not what is left”.
Sadly I can’t tell if I like these or not – what say you readers?
From here.
Title fit – I felt it
Palindromes are cool.
Your homework is to use these to write a palindromic haiku in the comments…
Spiderman Strikes Again
David Thorne, from 27bslash6, is up to his old antics once again. This time he’s terrorising a real estate agent. And I think we can all agree that real estate agents deserve it. Particularly because inspections are a pain and their need to come back again and again borders on voyeurism…
So I enjoyed this…
The email exchange after that report begins like this…
From: David Thorne
Date: Wednesday 30 September 2009 6.04pm
To: Peter Williams
Subject: Inspection Report
Dear Peter,
Thankyou for the surprise inspection and invitation to participate in the next. I appreciate you underlining the text at the bottom of the page which I would otherwise have surely mistaken for part of the natural pattern in the paper. I was going to clean the apartment but had so many things on my ‘to do’ list that I decided to treat them all equally and draw pictures of sharks instead. I have attached one for your honest appraisal.
I have read through your list of chores and intend to rectify the situation by wrapping my entire body in eighteen rolls of super absorbent Thick’n’thirsty® paper towels, hosing down the apartment, then rolling around on the floor and rubbing myself up and down walls. I will cover the more stubborn marks with Liquid Paper. I will also get back to you in regards to the premises being inspected in another two weeks, my agreement to do so will depend on availability and not wanting to.
Regards, David.
And it ends like this… read everything in between here. His site contains a fair bit of material that may offend though, so I wouldn’t click around too much if you’re the easily offended type…
From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 02 October 2009 10.36am
To: Peter Williams
Subject: Nom nom nom
Design brief
I have been doing a bit of web design stuff for work and on my blog for a while now – and I still find CSS glitches in my ad hoc approach to changing things.
Here are three essential tools for making web design using CSS an easier job.
- This Smashing Magazine CSS Tutorial is a must
- Firebug – the Firefox extension that allows you to chop and change your code and watch what it does to your page as you do it.
- A good CSS editor program (here are ten suggestions) takes out a lot of the grunt work.
Update – here are some cliched features to avoid. And my favourites listed in order of how annoying I find them…
- Autoplaying music
- Introduction movies with no skip button
- Comic Sans
- Overuse of stock images
- Animated Globes
One that wasn’t on the list that I find particularly annoying is talking ads that don’t pop up but move across the page. I guess people are trying to prove that they’re tech savvy and stuff…
Am I missing anything design people?
Comical discussion
A week after the PZ effect my traffic is just about back to normal… But for some of us the fun continued after discussion on that thread concluded.
Andrew Finden – opera singer extraordinaire (seriously, YouTube him) was in the blue corner, while a Canadian “stand up comedian” going by the name of Salvage was in the red corner.
I am going to call Andrew the winner in their 30 round match up. Salvage, like so many atheists before him, made the mistake of assuming:
a) that Andrew would be shocked to find out that Christians disagree about stuff.
b) that Christians have no idea about conjecture about the historicity of the Bible.
c) that Christians fail to grasp the basics of logic and argument.
d) that they, the atheist, on the basis of their rejection of Christianity, are in a better position to understand and critique the Bible.
He also couldn’t get past his notions of what Christians believe and actually engage with what it is that Andrew, and to a lesser extent me (he dismissed me on the basis of my disclaimer).
I’ve been pretty proud of the way Christians have conducted themselves in these threads – firstly Stephen on the original thread and then Andrew have handled obstreperous comments with grace and aplomb.
Nathan’s guide to better photography #1
When taking photos for publication don’t take photos of the back of people’s heads. These photos are unusable. They don’t tell a story. And it’s frustrating when you think you have photos of an event to use and you can’t use them.
That is all.