26 August 2006

Google Trends - Now everyone is talking about it

About two or three months ago, at least, I put a link to Google Trends on my blog. Amit over at Digital Inspiration notes that Slashdot has finally gotten around to noticing the existance of Google Trends. And Raze over at //BLawGandEconomics// mentioned it earlier this week. It is nice to know that I was ahead of the trend of talking about Google Trends, even if all I did was post a link off to the side under "Other Inetersting Links" eariler this summer (or was it in late spring?).

Oh and I have a post inspired by Google Trends results that I posted back on 4 August 2006. Twenty-two days ago. That's three weeks and one day before Slashdot reported on the launch of Google Trends.

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Texan stops crime in London while in Dallas

A guy in Dallas, Texas is online looking at a webcam of a street in London and witnesses a crime in progress. Read here about why he was looking at a street in London via the web and how he fought crime from afar.

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22 August 2006

I've Been Tagged

Book _Stillness is the Opening_ on self in the Sterling Room for Writers at Central Library

Kyle over at Inner Thoughts of a Questioning Mind has nicely tagged me with the book meme that's been going around the Blogsphere. Where possible I've linked book titles to Powells.com, the online home of the legendary independent bookstore, Powells City of Books. Powells isn't paying me, I just like them. Once upon a time I even lived within 200 feet of the City of Books.

Note: Book title links will open in a new window, other links will not.

1. One book that changed your life: Other than the Holy Bible (duh), Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. My Sophmore English teacher asked me and a few other bookworms to read it over the summer before Junior year and give her our opinions as she was considering adding it to the required reading list that next school year. It got me interested in reading literature from other cultures. Before that most of my exposure to non-US authors was confined to three English writers - the Tudor-era playwriter William Shakespeare, the Victorian author Charles Dickens, and the very prolific 20th Century writer Dame Barbara Cartland.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: In addition to the Holy Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, 1979, I would have to say To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: Any of these titles would do. ;-)

4. One book that made you laugh: The most recent - Sleepaway: Writings of Summer Camp edited by Eric Simonoff.

5. One book that made you cry: My Art History One textbook for this fall - cost of textbook: 104USD + 8.25% Sales Tax as compared to cost of tuition for that one class: 108USD. After sales tax the textbook costs 112.54USD, which you might note is more than the cost of the class! It had better be the same substansial weight as the Art History Two textbook I bought last January for Spring Semester.

6. One book you wish had been written: A highly personalized version of This is My Will for Your Life: Clear Directions in Plain English by God.

7. One book you wish had never been written: "Left Behind" by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Enough said. (I agree with Kyle on this one, so I just copied what he said and if you still want to read that series of fictional books based on a view of Christian eschatology that did not exist before the Victorian era, you can go Google them yourself.)

8. One book you’re currently reading: I have ADD, so I'll give you two - one Fiction and one Non-Fiction and in that order. Golden Years by Andrew M. Greeley+ and Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations by Dan Kimball.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations which according to Dan Kimball one should read before reading Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations. I just need to get around to getting the book.

10. Tag others: I tag, if not already tagged, the follwing bloggers: Adventures of Ash-M-Cash, Amy Reflects, anyone at //BLawG and Economics//, Come to the Table, +David the Blogging Bishop, and Submergence.

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Update @ 18:55 GMT on 25.8.2006 - Finally the photo thing is working, but I'm keeping the tag on here. Things go right, there should be a photo at the top of this blog entry.

19 August 2006

It's about time

It's about time. I was wondering when something like this might finally happen. The Episcopal Majority is finally speaking up!

Read more about the Episcopal Majority.

Tip of the hat: Jake+.

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17 August 2006

Cool Flickr Photo

14 August 2006

Kanuga

Chapel of the Transfiguration, Kanuga

This photo, taken about a year ago, shows the interior of the Chapel of the Transfiguration at Kanuga, the Episcopal Church connected camp and retreat center in Western North Carolina. (Map)

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11 August 2006

Blog Roundup

I've been catching up on my blog reading and thought I'd share a list of a few blog posts that I really liked. I've linked the blog names directly to the post of interest. In this post all links open in new windows (except Tags).

[Note: I've added a few more links, which are followed with the date added. In the future I'll try and do a blog round up about once a month.]

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09 August 2006

bleep bleep Blogger

I've spent the last couple of hours working on a long blog post with lots of links to other blogs. I go to save it as a draft. I'm prompted to log in. I thought I was logged in. I was logged in when I started the post after all. So I re-log in and what happens? The draft is gone. All gone.

BLEEP BLEEP

BLOGGER!!!!!!! URGH!!!!!!

Tomorrow is a busy day, but maybe on Friday I'll have time to recreate the post in MS Word, then I can paste it into Blogger!

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05 August 2006

Walking to the Sky

Walking to the Sky, a sculpture by Jonathan Borofsky

This was taken sometime last March at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. Walking to the Sky by Jonathan Borofsky was purchased last year and is on display in the Nasher's sculpture garden. The statue reaches a height of 100 feet or 30.48 meters. Another view of it can be seen in the archives of the Dallas Picture Blog and on Blogging Burt.

The Nasher itself was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano. In fact On Tour with Renzo Piano and Building Workshop - Selected Projects is currently entering it's last week at the Nasher, which is the exhibition's last US stop. Previous stops were in LA and Atlanta. Upcoming Nasher events are listed here.

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04 August 2006

News from The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East

I commend to you for reading the statement by The Rt. Rev. Riah H. Abu El-Assal, Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, of The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East on the current crisis in the Middle East.

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The Wrong Three Letter Word

Lately in The Episcopal Church all it seems anyone is talking about is s-e-x, or at least that seems to be the media image/public preception. When really the three letter would we should be talking about is G-o-d. But this apparent problem is not just limited to The Episcopal Church or even the broader worldwide Anglican Communon, of which The Episcopal Church is just one part. I did a little seacrh using Google Trends and found out that "sex" is more Googled than God, even though both get about the same amount of press coverage.

What was really interesting was the data for top ten languges, regions, and cities that this Googling was done in, as according to Google Trends (and the ratio of "sex" to "God" was very inequal in every case):

Language

  • 01. Vietnamese

  • 02. Arabic

  • 03. Turkish

  • 04. Polish

  • 05. Romanian

  • 06. Dutch

  • 07. Danish

  • 08. Thai

  • 09. English

  • 10. Swedish



Regions

  • 01. Pakistan

  • 02. Egypt

  • 03. Iran

  • 04. Viet Nam

  • 05. India

  • 06. Morocco

  • 07. Indonesia

  • 08. Saudi Arabia

  • 09. Turkey

  • 10. Philippines



Cities (with Google Map links)


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