Wi-Fi Church

Cardiff vicar has addressed the problem of falling congregations by offering his flock a quiet wireless hotspot in which they can seek the meaning of the word salvation on Google while chewing the fat via email with Pope Benny 16.

Handwriting Analysis

Write a paragraph, then answer questions about your handwriting. It is time consuming but I think fairly accurate. Here's a sample from my analysis:

The total lack of dotted 'i's in the script indicates that the subject is extremely independent in nature and many, if not all, of the following points will apply:-
She is very likely to be cheerful, resilient and placid, and will also be less concerned about the opinions of others. She will be less fearful of the future and more active in her approach to life. Because she seldom broods on past mistakes she will have a tendency to feel less guilt for her actions. Her resilience allows her to go through a crisis without experiencing as much stress or fatigue as the average person. She is a self-sufficient, resourceful individual who prefers to make her own decisions and resolutely stick to them.
The comparative height of the capital letters to the 'ascenders' in the script indicates that the subject has a mildly assertive personality. In conjunction with a large signature this means that she will be more confident and dominant in relationships and can find it relatively easy to strike up conversation with strangers.
She is likely to speak out forthrightly and can defend herself quite well if under attack. In a quarrel she could argue quite openly to defend her rights. She is more likely to complain about shoddy goods or poor service. She will also make a good host and can liven up a party.
The handwriting shows some signs of expansiveness, and this is an indication of an extrovert personality. The writer has an above average need for space and dislikes being confined. This hunger for space is reflected in the script.
This expansiveness shows in the subject's social relationships. She is likely to be more comfortable in company than on her own, and perhaps takes life more lightly than the average person. She may become quite easily bored, and often yearns for change and variety.
She is likely to express her feelings and moods quite freely, and is reasonably unconcerned with disorder or lack of control.

WinRoll

"Make a window roll into its title bar, send it to the back or make it stay on top. Minimize, maximize or close all visible windows, including minimizing to the tray area. Make a window translucent on Windows 2000 or above. WinRoll is lovingly hand-crafted in 100% pure assembly language to give the fastest response and the smallest memory footprint. WinRoll is proudly a FREEWARE and OPEN SOURCE application."

Mac users have had this feature in their OS for years. I'm trying it now -- it's pretty useful.

So Long, Garage Jammers. Nowadays Laptops Rock

Sitting in Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan last week, Michael Cobden could hardly be blamed for tapping his toe. It was a glorious spring day, and he was playing hooky from his job as a restaurant manager on the Upper West Side. Like a lot of people in the park, Mr. Cobden was enjoying a bit of alfresco media, with a Mac G4 laptop and a set of headphones.

Except Mr. Cobden, 28, was not checking e-mail messages while listening to music, he was creating a pop song called "Bryant Park." In doing so, Mr. Cobden joined millions of people - trained musicians and amateurs alike -

"Computers are the new garage."

who are using powerful laptop tools to produce music that in an earlier age might have wailed out of a garage. "An artist is an artist, even if he is using things he found or stole and arranging them in an artful fashion," he said. "There are many composers who never played an oboe, but they write the music and give it to an orchestra to play." For himself, Mr. Cobden tapped the Mac in front of him lovingly. "I have a computer," he said. (Hear the song he created here.)

"Computers are the new garage," said James Rotondi, the editor of Future Music, a new magazine packaged with enough free software to get any would-be Moby started. "A lot of people who are making music right now have never recorded to tape. The concept is completely foreign to them."

Read the rest...

It seems to me that there are two things happening here:

More people will be creating content of all kinds since it's so easy to be in many forms of media. An example of this is Quantazelle (profiled in this post on CreateDigitalMusic), a "talented IDM, musician/producer; creator/editor of the electronic music zine Modsquare; owner of the jewelry company Zella (catalog); and founder, manager, and designer of the subvariant record label." She is the perfect example of a new kind of renaissance man.

In addition to those who will quit their day jobs and dive into the deep end of the new media, there will be a lot of hobbyist-types who give away the content they create, in exchange for donations perhaps. I think this NYTimes piece is a confirmation of that idea.

Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

"HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries."

1. The Communist Manifesto
2. Mein Kampf
3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
4. The Kinsey Report
5. Democracy and Education
6. Das Kapital
7. The Feminine Mystique
8. The Course of Positive Philosophy
9. Beyond Good and Evil
10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Honorable mention: The Population Bomb

Complete story at Human Events Online.