In Defense of the New Facebook. (Also, Am I the Only Person Who Likes It?)

Facebook has been everyone's favorite networking tool ever since we discovered that it lacked embedded porn and the ability to force loud music on us, like MySpace. In the last year, however, I've been disappointed with it.

First of all, if I am not being asked to be a ninja I am being asked to join a group of losers who want me to petition Facebook to clone tree frogs or some crap like that.

Secondly, lately when I have visited someone's page I would find that they had so many annoying 'boxes' on their Facebook layout that I couldn't always find their Wall or their pictures. I had to wade through the SuperWall and the 15 quiz results to get to anything I wanted to see. (I don't care which Sex and the City character you are and does that info really need to take up half of the screen? Anyway, there are only four of those women, did you end up being most like the dirty minded socialite who likes shoes? This isn't exactly Myers-Briggs.)

In the new Facebook, I can find what I want by clicking on the tabs and if I want to know the BackStreet boy you are most compatible with I can click on the tab for asinine applications. The old Facebook was clearly not designed for this explosion of third party programs and the new one has made my life easier.

Someone at Dallas Bapstist University Has Gotten the Wrong Idea

An Army Reserves sergeant studying at Dallas Baptist University was surprised this week to find the message "soldiers are murderers" spray painted on his Jeep Wrangler.

He parked his car around 2:00 a.m., by 6:00 his tires had flattened, his seats were torn up, and the graffiti had been added.

What the vandal may not have known is that the victim, Junior Viktow Whitlow, wasn't exactly the kind of soldier who shoots people. As he puts it, "I actually worked in a medical treatment facility and we actually saved lives instead of taking them."

Not that it makes a difference. This kind of intoleration should not happen and normally does not happen at Dallas Baptist University. Mark Hale, the dean of students, does not believe a DBU student is responsible and I agree with him. While this may sound like wishful thinking to some, I know Mark Hale and he knows the student body quite well. It's still possible that it could have been a student, but this kind of hatred is pretty rare on a campus composed largely of home-schooled children and other tame versions of Southern Baptists. In my years there I never witnessed a brawl or a hateful political demonstration or anything else that would lean toward this type of thinking.

To be honest, it's hard to believe many of the students were awake. Most of the students I knew were asleep by midnight and those of us who stayed out all night were 'weird'. If staying out that late qualifies as 'weird' it's a pretty tame place.

For what it's worth, Mr. Whitlow, I appreciate your service to our country and I'm sure most of your classmates do as well. As a matter of fact, most of the country feels this way. Only the cowards who show their faces at night to do their deeds in the dark would say otherwise. And we know that you are not a murderer.

Will the Japanese Build the First Space Elevator?

First envisioned by the celebrated master of science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke, in his 1979 work The Fountains of Paradise, the concept has all the best qualities of great science fiction: it is bold, it is a leap of imagination and it would change life as we know it.

Aurthur C. Clarke gave us a lot, decades ago he envisioned electronic devices floating in outer space and maintaining a geostationary orbit; we used that concept to pioneer satellites. The Japanese are prepared to take another one of Clarke's visions to the drawing board - the space elevator.

The space elevator is the most simple "why didn't I think of that" concept for space travel I have ever heard of. Basically, we stick a landing pad in space that acts like a satellite and we tether it to the Earth with a long, sturdy cable/ribbon. Then, we ascend the cable to the floating station in space and, viola, easy space travel. No rockets, no fuel, a rather simple method. In this article, James D. Miller argues that this would be the best way to get to the moon.

The problem is in the cable. There is no way, currently, to manufacture the necessary tether that would connect the orbiting station to the Earth and hold the weight of travelers, but engineers thrive on opportunities like this.

I would like to see our politicians get into this and start encouraging engineers to come up with solutions, but right now the Japanese are getting on board.

Link.

Why I Don't Believe in God

I don't believe in God because my parents told me to. That's foolish. I was raised in a Christian home, but I have faced many challenges since then and made decisions about my beliefs on my own.

I don't believe in God because I have never studied other religions/don't understand philosophy. I own a Koran and am familiar with the content of the Hadith. I appreciate that postmodernism is an incredulity to all metanarratives and see it as a useful approach to understanding some physical and metaphysical truths. I know the Universalist arguments and those of the atheists. While I don't claim to be an expert, I find that I know these various religions/beliefs/worldviews better than the average person I meet and these studies are reflected in my point of view.

I don't believe in God because I am unaware of supposed problems with the Bible. Christianity is based on the Bible in many ways so, naturally, I have spent countless hours scrutinizing the scriptures trying to find out if the critics are correct when they say that the Bible is flawed and thus cannot be Holy. (Have you ever studied the Tyndale, Wycliff, and NASB translations side by side looking for discrepancies? I certainly have.) My studies have served to strengthen my belief that the Bible is accurate and not flawed.

I believe in God because I know Him. That's not a hyperbole. I know God as I know my wife and my friends. As a young man I knew His influence in my life and in times of doubting and questioning I still know that He is God. In my darkest hours when I wonder how God can exist in such a dark world I know that the voice I hear is that of God and that He loves me. The experience of other Christians and the words of the Bible confirm my experience, but such confirmation is not needed; I know God.

It may sound magical or new age or silly, but it really doesn't matter to me. God isn't a theory or a stained glass portrait in a building, He is my friend and savior. Is this experience real or just my imagination? I've asked myself that, but the idea is as silly as asking if your brother or sister is part of your imagination. He's someone who walks and talks with me each day in a way that I cannot understand, but years of critical analysis and challenges have convinced me, and many others, that this experience is real.

Did Satanists Really Murder Four Teens...and Eat Them?

You may not want to read this,

It happened in Yarolslavle, Russia, 480 miles from Moscow. Four young people who have been missing since June were found by investigators.

Police found the victims' arms and legs in a pit dressed with Satanic symbols, and investigators say each victim was stabbed 666 times – a number taken to be the sign of the devil.

It was other teenagers who carried out the crime. Eight young people are suspected of being responsible; all of them are members of a devil worshiping cult. This sounds unbelievable (most stories I hear about Satan worshipers turn out to be hysteria) but this time the Devil worshipers are not the work of someone's paranoia.

Parts of the bodies were mutilated and then eaten, then the remains of the bodies were placed in a pit next to an upside-down cross.

I grew up during the Ritual Satanic Abuse scare. After a few murders/child molestations were blamed on Satanic cults parents began to fear that Satanists were in their neighborhood operating in evil underground temples where children were abused and sacrifices were made to Baphomet. The media fed these fears and soon everyone knew that the Satanists were in their backyard. It was a silly time when owning a pet snake or listening to rock music could label you as a Devil worshiping killer by concerned parents.

At the time, this kind of murder wasn't even happening, it was just hysteria, but this time it was real.

Building Nuclear Power on the Moon

Here's the kind of story that will seem unimportant to the mass media, but could have far reaching implications: NASA is trying to build a nuclear reactor on the moon.

I'm already anticipating the protesters with signs reading, "You ruined Earth/Now you're ruing the Moon' or something terribly sad and poignant. If you're stuck in the 70's and you think nuclear power is bad, none of this will appeal to you.

Humans will probably eventually need to leave the Earth to live somewhere else. (We're talking about the distant future, not next week when the polar ice caps melt and the world is underwater because we didn't recycle.) If we are going to explore space and find another home we will need to colonize other planets and the Moon is a good place to start. Building a nuclear power station could give us the power we need to start building living quarters, landing pads, and observatories. The Discovery article reports that the amount of power NASA is trying to provide would power about 8 U.S. homes, so they are obviously working on long term plans that could put people there. It makes me wish I had gotten into astrophysics.

Putting nuclear power on the moon might seem trivial, but humans in the future could remember this as the first step toward putting a permanent residence on another planet.

Christians Receive Much Needed Dating Tips

Do you struggle with dating? Are you a Christian believer who needs more confidence? Apparently, you are not alone. (Which is bound to be good news.)

There has been a sharp rise in the number of worshippers signing up to internet dating sites, but clergy are concerned that they are losing personal skills, such as flirting and reading signals.

You heard it here, first. Anyway, a guy named Peter Spalton (known as the dating doctor, according to articles, but does anyone actually call him that?) is leading classes specifically designed to help churchgoers learn to flirt, date, and find partners.

The article also lists various church-related pick-up lines. Here are a few:

'I didn't believe in predestination until tonight.'

'My parents are home, wanna come over?'

'Is that a thinline, duo-tone, compact, ESV travel bible in your pocket?'

There are more of those at the link. Use them wisely.

(Link. Via Neatorama.)

WadingThrough the Sarah Palin Rumors

OK, no matter which side you are on in the world of politics, I hope that you care about the truth. Charlie Martin over at Pajamas Media got so tired of reading email forwards about Sarah Palin’s religion or her extraterrestrial origin that he decided to write a blog detailing the truth of every one of these rumors. It includes the following:

Yes, she is governor of Alaska. No, she’s not the lieutenant governor. No, she’s not currently mayor of Wasilla.

Yes, she was mayor of Wasilla, some years ago. And yes, the New York Times says the job of governor of Alaska is one of the harder, and more powerful, jobs in state government.

Yes, there are people in Alaska who think she’s too liberal.

No, the Downs baby (Trig) isn’t Bristol’s kid, and no, the kid wasn’t born with Downs because (a) Palin flew on an airplane (b) went home to have the baby after an amniotic leak (c) because he was the result of incest between Todd Palin and Bristol.

No, Willow and Piper aren’t named for witches on TV. Among other things, Willow was born before Buffy came on TV, and Piper was born before Charmed.

Here is the main article where you can read many more like this, including the truth about Sarah Palin banning books, a rumor that even appeared (briefly) on Obama's website. Some of them may make you happy, some of them may disappoint you, but knowledge is power and we should take knowledge to the polls, not rumors.

The Super Collider that Will Destroy the Earth in 6 Days

Unless you have been living under a rock, you probably know that some eggheads in Europe have invented the world's most impressive particle accelerator which will enable particles to be flung at much faster speeds than before. Hold on, it gets better. After playing 'Speed Racer' to see who can throw particles the fastest, they are going to crash these particles together to see what happens.


This is why men get into science. Women probably want to cure disease or something, but not men. All we want to know is, can we blow some stuff up?

This collider has already seen its day in court. Scientists on the outside of this project have claimed that we cannot be sure what will happen when this experiment begins and some theorize that it could create black holes that will destroy our planet.

The eggheads at the Large Hadron Collider (I would have called it the 'Huge Awesome Collider) claim that they have checked their sums and that nothing of the sort will happen. The experiment should give us ideas about what could have started our universe and give more insight
into the nature of subatomic particles, thus unlocking some mystery of quantum physics.

That sounds comforting, nothing to worry about, right?. Oh, did I mention that there was an explosion at the site a few months ago?

The mistakes led to an explosion deep in the tunnel at the Cern particle
accelerator complex near Geneva in Switzerland. It lifted a 20-ton
magnet off its mountings, filling a tunnel with helium gas and forcing
an evacuation.

Um, and that wasn't the first problem of this magnitude.

On Tuesday, March 27, there was a serious failure in a high-pressure test
at CERN of a Fermilab-built "inner-triplet" series of three quadrupole
magnets in the tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider. The magnets focus
the particle beams prior to collision at each of four interaction
points around the accelerator.

They'll switch it on, Wednesday. I'm sure everything will be fine.