The Church of Halo

America has been an interesting hotbed of convenience inventions including but not limited to all-you-can-eat pizza places, wireless internet, and the Roomba® have come up with another idea for worship. Converting a big box store into an 111,000 sq ft mega church won't be an easy task but the most interesting addition is the arcade for kids/teens which will have a Halo running Xbox. Halo, of course, is rated by the ESRB as M for Mature so it begs the question why in the world a church would sponsor the addition.

(from the Detroit News article )

"We want going to church to be an enjoyable and enriching experience for the whole family," said Senior Pastor Jerry Weinzierl, 50, of Warren. "Even if someone comes in for the wrong reason, I can maybe make an impact on them for that moment." "This will be a very peaceful place."

Using contemporary culture to be bait for fishers of men isn't necessarily a new concept. Crosswinds, a local university youth group, had every Wednesday a "Halo Night" that provided the space and projectors for 4 linked Xboxes to run Halo 2, and was by far the most popular event. I hope in this Wal-Mart style church these people won't have too many distractions.

Link via Detroit News

Fix that Drab Desktop

Psst.

Hey you. Yeah, I got a message for ya from your computer. Your desktop is lookin pretty stale. Lucky for you I've got some cool places for you to spuce your screen.

Desktopography.net

Not sure the purpose of this place, but in essence its some of the best desktop art one could hope to find. My only complaint is that in the end, the site design is not older comp friendly, being heavy flash. Yeah, its artistic and all but when it comes down to raw web design, there are other ways to replicate what they did with CSS with limited success. All of that aside, it has previous years and what not to download and enjoy.




Wikipedia - Featured Picture Archive

Wouldn't think of a free online encyclopedia to be a romping ground of great images but fortunately there are a listing of people who scour Wikipedia for great images and nominate them for the pic of the day. To be pic of the day, its stipulated that it has to be desktop sized, making life easy from the start.







[Adult Swim] Downloads

When filtered by background and some searching comes across all of [adult swim]'s bumps they put for their action shows. Its really cool of them cause there are some crazy ideas for backgrounds. I have the Fujiyama pic up now and since they have all sorts of file sizes and what not, its not hard to find a good fit for your computer.

Fix that Drab Desktop

Psst.

Hey you. Yeah, I got a message for ya from your computer. Your desktop is lookin pretty stale. Lucky for you I've got some cool places for you to spuce your screen.

Desktopography.net

Not sure the purpose of this place, but in essence its some of the best desktop art one could hope to find. My only complaint is that in the end, the site design is not older comp friendly, being heavy flash. Yeah, its artistic and all but when it comes down to raw web design, there are other ways to replicate what they did with CSS with limited success. All of that aside, it has previous years and what not to download and enjoy.



Wikipedia - Featured Picture Archive

Wouldn't think of a free online encyclopedia to be a romping ground of great images but fortunately there are a listing of people who scour Wikipedia for great images and nominate them for the pic of the day. To be pic of the day, its stipulated that it has to be desktop sized, making life easy from the start.





[Adult Swim] Downloads

When filtered by background and some searching comes across all of [adult swim]'s bumps they put for their action shows. Its really cool of them cause there are some crazy ideas for backgrounds. I have the Fujiyama pic up now and since they have all sorts of file sizes and what not, its not hard to find a good fit for your computer.


Socwall.com - Social Wallpaper

While there are a ton of pics on Digg, there isn't really a wallpaper section to vote up really good images on the web. Socwall solves this, in a similar way too...and hopefuly the site gets popular only to get more quality. Completely supported by ads, it invites people to vote up or down on images, filtering the spam and rising to the top quality images. Its only downside really would be the legality of being able to post someone elses pictures on their server. Maybe they should go to linking soon? Who knows. Its still a great site and a vote in my book.

The Failure of Common Courtesy (Followed by the Failure of Common Sense)

Gallivanting about on the intarwebs in my 2007 Google Reader, I came upon the Ars Technica RSS feed and something caught my eye. A story about Michigan man Sam Peterson leeching free wi-fi from the local coffee shop from the comfort of his car. (The local TV station story can be found here.) The problem here is this. The guy would use the free wi-fi access daily to check his mail without ever buying a cup of joe. If the story stopped here, then I would side with the coffee company. The guy is essentially stealing. Hes using something that someone else is paying for, that is given freely on good faith that he'd at least use the free wi-fi while drinking a cup of coffee. Sam Peterson was wrong here. He could have gotten out of his car, gone inside and for a 2 dollar cup of coffee, checked as much email as he wanted to.

Here is where I get a little disturbed. He was arrested then tried under a Michigan law that prohibits Fraudulent access to computers, computer systems, and computer networks and carries some pretty stiff penalties for the offense, but the judge was lenient and only sentences Peterson to pay a fine and do some community service. The Ars Technica article states that the arresting officer did so for basically because he wasn't sure what Peterson was doing, but knew it was wrong. This is what makes me furrow my brow. While Peterson was being rude and inconsiderate, I don't feel he was breaking a law. The coffee shop could have, at any time, restricted their wi-fi to prevent people not in the building from leeching bandwidth. But because its probably too much hassle for the company and the customer to figure WPA shared key security, they left their wireless network open to attack and frankly, illicit use.

I'm sure this person learned his life lesson that his convince costs the price of a cup of coffee, but in my opinion wasn't worth the price he paid.

Army Blocks Youtube, Myspace, Fun Times

First thing is first. I don't know why this is so much a big deal. Yes, it sucks that our soldiers can't talk to people on Myspace (which in some circles is the only method of communication) but I don't think its censorship. Basically, not only is it a security risk but streaming Youtube is heavy on bandwidth uses. Is it fair? Not really. But my work doesn't even let me access my blog competely. Its not out of malice but basically they don't want our workers destroying the network with traffic thats not legit traffic but rather traffic that makes money. Same problem but on a worldwide, closed network.

I don't understand how this is censorship. Pretty much I just feel that its not out of reach of speculation that all of that traffic would cause congestion. People put so many pictures and movies that its even worse then Youtube on a good day.

In the end I guess it looks bad on the military again, and especially while they deserve it more often then not. I guess in my humble opinion, this time its unwarrented.

Link

How Very Meta of You

Consumption of news is changing by the minute this seems, but what seems interesting is what it means. I am by no means normal, but what I notice is that people are aggregating news more often. For example I use Google Reader to read things that I frequent on the web, but the downside is that doesn't lead to content discovery. For that I use StumbleUpon or Digg to find new things that other people think are cool, and continue the consumption. But all of that is very digital. I don't mind sitting in front of a computer staring at a screen, but reading a newspaper on the loo is equally as nice. One thing I can't get enough of is the podcasting scene. Granted, now I'm a Mac convert (really I'm OS agnostic, but anyway) so podcasting has always been an easy endeavor. Something else though that's important for the podcasting formula is that you have to be free to listen to it for an hour or so daily, whether in the car or what have you, and to that end sometimes NPR is way better at keeping you up-to-date.

In the end, I'm just amazed at the level of opinion there is to be had on the web. The very fact there is a blogosphere mystifies me. People commenting on peoples comments who read from a Digg thread about a rumor from someone else who twittered it from a convention floor. Seriously people, that's enough. When you Digg something about a post on BoingBoing which got it from oddball section of Reuters...at what point do we just buy a newspaper.

Disclaimer: If you don't understand what in the world is being said, don't worry at all. To be honest, its only important to the people involved and is probably an adult version of the fervor Myspace creates. The only reason why it gets interesting at all is again an easier way to digitally stalk someone. That being said, if you want to find my digital footprint, just google my pseudonym DeathscytheH64, which I imagine is infinitely easier to find out what I'm doing then finding my address and driving in front of my house.

Gaming and Whatnot

Ever since 1up Yours people started harping on Puzzle Quest for the DS, I've been wanting to check it out. Unfortunately theres another unmentionable game that recently came out thats been lookin fun to play.

Its been every pokefan's dream to play wirelessly over great distances, even if they didn't know it yet.

My roommate and I made a 2v2 arena team called No Innocent Victim. Logging with a 14-7 win/loss and a 1600+ rating ain't bad. The sad thing is I've been wanting to level Shaman. Who knows.

Keri was talking up Gears of War and all I could think of was, "that'd be fun after WoW". Pretty much if it wasn't for that game I'd care more about others. Honestly though, I've been having plenty of fun just playing with my real life AND WoW friends. I know it doesn't last forever but I'm along for the ride.