July 2010

Lifehacker points to Paul Graham’s The Top Idea in Your Mind. “…the idea one thinks about when allowed to think freely—in the shower, for example—is more than a quiet obsession… a top idea in your head is getting all kinds of free, enthusiastic thinking that other ideas aren’t getting.” Graham goes on to talk about priorities and non-priorities, but the point I’d like to make here is that the “top idea” is a good indicator of what your vision or passion is. If you want to find out what God’s gifted you to do, one way might be to get [...]

See “YWAM 50th Celebration in Mongolia.” The first base launched in Erdenet in 1998. Now, a little more than 10 years later, they have 5 bases and over 80 staff—most first generation believers. That means a new base has been launched at least every other year (although it would be interesting to plot out the distribution of new bases launched). YWAM spreads in a swarmish, viral fashion. Any time you want to understand how a swarm functions—find a nearby YWAM base, and take the base leader to lunch, and ask him (or her) all about the history of the base [...]

“…Nor is success simply the sum of the decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather, a gift. Outliers are those who have been given opportunities—and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them. For hockey and soccer players born in January, it’s a better shot at making the all-star team. For the Beatles, it was Hamburg. For Bill Gates…” -From Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, the 5th most highlighted book on Amazon Kindle. It’s worth reading, esp. for the section on 10,000 hours being key to expertise. How many hours of practice at fulfilling [...]

When historians of the future look back on the perils of the early digital age, Stacy Snyder may well be an icon. The problem she faced is only one example of a challenge that, in big and small ways, is confronting millions of people around the globe: how best to live our lives in a world where the Internet records everything and forgets nothing — where every online photo, status update, Twitter post and blog entry by and about us can be stored forever. via The Web Means the End of Forgetting – NYTimes.com. This has implications for missionaries, too. [...]

The Straits Times this morning is reporting that 200 ‘witches’ killed each year in India: women lynched after being accused of practising witchcraft. This sounds like a terrible number, but it’s an example of a statistic that can get us  carried away. Any one falsely accused and executed is a terrible thing, and should be worked against. But 200 out of 1._ billion people is a very small minority and requires a fairly specialized work to target and stop it. Bride-burning (sati) for example kills more than 2,500 women p.a. in India. Always make sure to put statistics in perspective.

…between crossing into a different culture in the physical world, and crossing into a different culture in the online world? …between exchanging currency from Dollars to Ringgits, and exchanging currency into a vultural world? …between being a blessing in the context of a natural disaster, and being a blessing in the context of an online environment? …between presenting the Gospel in a meaningful way in a different language, face to face, and presenting the Gospel in a meaningful way online? …if massively multiplayer online games are a $40 billion industry that is “here to stay”–and attracting players from all over [...]

A New Version Of Google Chrome Now Due Every Six Weeks. The reason: Google is creating many few features at ever greater speeds and want to get them to users – however, it also ends up easing the pressure on developers. When releases are slow (e.g. every 6 months or so) designers get pressured to finish up features earlier or risk having them not show up for another half-year. When releases are more frequent, there is less pressure to hit it “this time” because “next time” is only a few weeks away. Rapid iteration and continuous improvement in the context [...]