Wednesday, 14 March 2007

Thank God

“The church I focus on in my article attracts 10,000 West Michigan suburbanites each Sunday. It meets in what used to be shopping mall. They’ve converted over the WHOLE MALL–with shops now serving as Sunday school classrooms and meeting spaces for events throughout the week.” – Zack Exley

Deserted shopping malls and Super Wal-Marts are the scourge of our time. The great thing about yesteryear’s warehouses were the huge windows and the convenient locations. Big boxes are an altogether different animal.

Giant parking lots. No windows. Hundreds of thousands of depressingly, lonely square feet.

It’s great to hear about community-focused organizations trying to solve this problem.

Thursday, 1 February 2007

The Power of 1 Slice of Bread

Every wonder why there aren’t as many open-face sandwiches for sale in your local supermarket. No?…..well, it’s political:

“USDA inspects manufacturers of packaged open-face meat or poultry sandwiches (e.g., those with one slice of bread), but FDA inspects manufacturers of packaged closed-face meat or poultry sandwiches (e.g., those with two slices of bread).” – U.S. Government Accountability
Office, High Risk Series: An Update

The upshot is – by adding one more piece of bread, sandwich manufacturers can sell their product without explicit approval from a government acronym and get inspected every 5 years – rather than daily.

Monday, 22 January 2007

2008 Presidential Candidates as Tech Gadgets

  • For being really attractive, an expected move forward, and making it fun to improve ourselves
    John Edwards = Nintendo Wii
  • For being a really good solution with enthusiastic support, but never quite feels right
    Dennis Kucinich = RIM Blackberry
  • For showing us what we all know the future looks like but still making us wonder if now is the time
    Barak Obama = Apple iPhone
  • For being expected and reliable
    Hillary Clinton = Tivo

LATER
Keep the comparisons are rolling into the comments…Al Gore = Ubuntu = awesome.

Thursday, 11 January 2007

Saturday, 6 January 2007

Thursday, 4 January 2007

Thursday, 28 December 2006

Political News: Tomorrow Started Yesterday

The 2007 political races have already begun:

  1. John Edwards announces his candidacy for POTUS on YouTube.
  2. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of politics, my dad announced he’s running for 3rd Ward Alderman up northern Wisconsin over a phone call with me.

While the former was hinted at and could have been guessed. The latter came completely out of nowhere and showed me a whole new side of my dad. I’m excited for him.

Happy birthday to me – and good luck Dad.

Oh, and John Edwards too.

Wednesday, 20 December 2006

A Cry for Help

If a month-old baby going through an x-ray machine can’t bring a heavy dose of common sense to the TSA, what will?

“Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, which manages LAX screeners, said the agency doesn’t have enough workers to constantly stand at tables in front of the screeners to coach passengers on what should or should not be sent through X-ray machines.” – Jennifer Oldham, Los Angeles Times

[via Bruce Schneier]

Friday, 1 December 2006