the stuff in my head

Apparently people are looking for God online… and finding podcasts. Hopefully some are finding bluer… or creative church… or a new podcast to be released soon (John and I were just figuring out the technical details 5 minutes ago).

Weekly church sermons that can be downloaded from the Internet and played on portable audio players have become the Podcasts most in demand, according to analysis of search results at Lycos.com.

“During the past month, searches for Godcasts have risen over 355%,” said Dean Tsouvalas, writer of the Lycos 50 report. “There are no specific ‘Pod preachers’ being queried, but it’s only a matter of time before the ‘Billy Graham’ of Podcasts emerges,” he wrote in an e-mail. …

CBS Marketwatch: Podcasters getting religion (BugMeNot)

I just ate some Peanut Butter Bumpers with Rice Dream Milk. It wasn’t bad. It was no Peanut Butter Crunch with Whole Milk, but it was a lot better for me. At breakfast I had some organic cream cheese on my (non organic) bagel. Last week I signed up for a Community Support Agriculture program to get fresh, organic, locally grown veggies delivered every week this summer.

There’s an organic/vegan/healthy eating kick going through my church at the moment and I think it’s a good thing. Most of us (me especially) eat terrible and feel like it. Some of my friends like Jen and Patsy are totally changing their diet. I’m not ready for that, but I am going to try to incorporate more and more whole foods into my diet, and cut out the crap… especially the fast food.

It won’t be easy, but hopefully I will feel and look better because of it.

Update: Screw Rice Dream, Plain Silk Soy Milk is the stuff.

The First Law of Sampling: The amount of sampling allowed, even with an agreement with the record company, is inversely proportionate to the amount of money that could be garnered by suing over the sample.

The Second Law of Sampling: The number of former managers, band members, and rights holders willing to sue over the smallest sample, even buried under layers of original instrumentation, is directly proportinate to the popularity of the song that contains the sample.

The Third Law of Sampling: If it goes to court, you’re probably screwed (and/or broke) whether you win or not.

The Fourth Law of Sampling: Even if you manage to settle out of court, you still may lose your livelihood, your band, and possibly your mind.

The First Law of Dealing with People Used to Making Money for the Rest of Their Lives for a 5 Minute Song They Created 20 Years Ago (and possibly did not even create, but merely purchased the rights to): They are a bunch of greedy, greedy people. Stay away from them, and don’t sample their songs under any circumstances, you’ll probably regret it.

Read all about the Bittersweet Symphony

It’s a good thing we now have Creative Commons to bring some sanity to this mess!

As many of you know, I am not a huge fan of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), or of the entertainment industry’s attempts to control how I use products I’ve purchased. Well, for once, we have a chance to fix some elements of the heinous DMCA that has been wreaking havoc on fair use and free speech for the last 7 years.

The DMCA is bad. It’s bad for you and bad for America. You may not realize it, but you probably violate the DMCA more than you know, and someday the RIAA, MPAA, or whoever has a gripe with people using their media in lawful ways may just sue you for it.

So take action now, all it takes is a few clicks.

Here’s what the EFF has to says about the issue:

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has been wreaking
havoc on consumers’ fair use rights for the past seven
years. Now Congress is considering the Digital Media
Consumers’ Rights Act (DMCRA, HR 1201), a bill that would
reform part of the DMCA and formally protect the “Betamax
defense” relied on by so many innovators.

HR 1201 would give citizens the right to circumvent
copy-protection measures as long as what they’re doing
is otherwise legal. For example, it would make sure
that when you buy a CD, whether it is copy-protected
or not, you can record it onto your computer and move
the songs to an MP3 player. It would also protect a
computer science professor who needs to bypass
copy-protection to evaluate encryption technology.

In addition, the bill would codify the Betamax defense,
which has been under attack by the entertainment
industry through the “Induce Act” last year and the
MGM v. Grokster case currently before the Supreme
Court. This kind of sanity would be a welcome change
to our copyright law.

Last year we sent 30,000+ letters of support for the
DMCRA, and the bill got a hearing on Capitol Hill. It’s
time to double that number – take action at the link
below, then urge your friends and family to support HR
1201, too!

Take action at the EFF site.

In response to DJ Chuang’s request, I hacked together a screen scraper/RSS podcast maker script.

Basically it grabs the HTML from a page, finds the MP3 links and creates a RSS feed out of them. Some of the code is borrowed from various sources on the net (thanks Google).

WARNING: You could really piss off the recipient of the traffic this can generate. I take no responsibility for what you do with this, it’s a proof of concept, use it at your own risk.

I’m offering up the source code for someone else to take it and run with it, I don’t have the time of energy to improve it beyond where it is.

Grab the source file (zipped PHP file).

Read this: Bold Truth Tour uses marketing, Bible teachings, then read on…

First off, I realize not everyone is Billy Graham, but charging $12 for an evangelistic crusade is just ludicrous IMHO. A Chrisitian could buy themselves and a friend a ticket (crusades work best when a Christian brings a non-Christian friend), but what if a seeker who wanders up to the door, curious, and wants in? Would they be turned away if they won’t/can’t pay? What would Jesus have to say about that? I have to take serious issue with charging people to hear the Gospel. God’s love was a free gift to us, what right do we have to charge others to hear about it?

Second, they’ve got an altar call checklist. Read that again. It’s an altar call checklist. Once all the boxes are checked, you’re a Christian! The boiling down of the salvation experience to a checklist has got to be one the most serious issues I take with modern ‘decision’ based ministries. Following God in the way of Jesus (aka, being a Christian) is not a checklist, it’s not a decision, it’s not a single event, it’s a way of life. Period. Telling people anything else is irresponsible.

The Bible passage, which says, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord,” — combined with a step-by-step altar call checklist provided by the McDowell ministry — increased her confidence.

Third, what is up with this quote?

Rapid City youth pastors, like Luke Baker of South Canyon Baptist Church and Nick Ewing of Rimrock Free, are “drooling” over the evangelism opportunities that the rally will provide to local churches, Altstiel said.

“Drooling” over the evangelism opportunities? Did they seriously say that when they knew the article would be in the local paper?! I hope they were misquoted, or that is waaay out of context.

Ugh. Rant over. You may flame below, but please be civil.

PS- if you don’t get the title, watch Fight Club.