archshrk

That is all.

From The Treasury of David, Exposition of Psalm 116:15, by Charles Spurgeon:

“They shall not die prematurely; they shall be immortal till their work is done; and when their time shall come to die, then their deaths shall be precious. The Lord watches over their dying beds, smooths their pillows, sustains their hearts, and receives their souls. Those who are redeemed with precious blood are so dear to God that even their deaths are precious to him. The deathbeds of saints are very precious to the church, she often learns much from them; they are very precious to all believers, who delight to treasure up the last words of the departed; but they are most of all precious to the Lord Jehovah himself, who views the triumphant deaths of his gracious ones with sacred delight. If we have walked before him in the land of the living, we need not fear to die before him when the hour of our departure is at hand.”

Good bye my friend.

According to a Disney press release…
Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the same world of fierce programs and gladiatorial games where his father has been living for 25 years. Along with Kevin’s loyal confidante (Olivia Wilde), father and son embark on a life-and-death journey across a visually-stunning cyber universe that has become far more advanced and exceedingly dangerous

Now I understand what my grandfather meant about “back in my day”

It seems that classics are coming back with the benefit of improved technology and improved story telling (and improved budgets, too)

First is the return of the classic mythology masterpiece, Clash of the Titans. It looks pretty good so far but there is a notable absence from the original. Namely, Bubo the Owl. Maybe there’ll be a surprise appearance but it currently looks to be more in the vain of 300 than The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

Then there’s the Karate Kid. Empire Magazine informs us that “With Jaden’s Smith’s Dre Parker as the new Daniel Larusso and Jackie Chan as Mr Han standing in for Pat Morita’s Mr Miyagi, this still looks and sounds for all intents and purposes like a straight retelling of the original’s story.” Good. The original is a really decent story and despite the campiness of the 1984 version inspired many a young boy to value honor an integrity (as well as take karate lessons)

Between these two and Avatar: The Last Airbender, I think this may be my summer of movies.

Dispite the funny transcriptions you get with Google Voice, I still think its worth getting. If you do sign up, there are a couple of things to consider.

First, get a Google Number. There’s more features this way and you can always start giving it out as your number or keep it secret for special people to use (your mom, the baby sitter, the guy who interviewed you for that dream job…)

Second, pick a good number. When you get a Google number you have some control over what number they assign to you. First, pick your area code. Simple enough unless your one of the many Americans who live in a multi-area code zone (like me). From there, you can search for certain character combinations that may be available. Anything good is likely already taken so consider something easy for you. If your number is 123-555-4321 then try and get something in your area code with 4321 also. That way, you only need to remember three new digits. or try getting your number for a different area code.

Once you’re done, you can use this number to send and receive sms messages (sorry, no media messages). Just make sure you don’t have it send you a text message to your cell phone if you have a smart phone and use the Google Voice app. If you do, then you’ll get two notices every time you get a message.

One of the ways that I made my Motorola Droid phone work for me is signing up for a Google Voice number and using that as my voice mail service. So when you call my cell number and leave a message, that message is actually saved to my Google Voice number which offers online retrieval and, more importantly, transcripts of the message.

This is a free service which is good, because if I was paying for this service, I’d be really disappointed. But since it’s free and isn’t any worse than my carrier’s voice mail system (aside from the delay) I’ll keep using it. You see, while it’s pretty good at transcribing the messages I get, it only gets about 70% of the message right. That’s enough to get the gist of the message prior to listening to it but not enough to rely on it for detailed information. Case in point, below are a couple of messages I received this weekend. One from my wife, and the other from a good friend of mine.

Hey love, it’s mike another year now and we’re walking up for the front gate, so just want to let you know. Hopefully we’ll be able to meet you there. Man will see you soon. Thanks. Bye.

Hey Babe, It’s just me. I, I just left starting it and I just wanted to see Al Gore invented the thing. Hopefully you were able to concentrate and he was the as well for you so love you. I’m heading over to the party now. Love you bye.

The italics represent the words that Google Voice wasn’t sure about. It uses various shades of grey text to represent it’s confidence in accuracy But as you can tell from the actual messages, even that isn’t completely reliable.

My Friend My-Friend

My Wife My-Wife

Google and I have a love/hate relationship. I love its spam stopping capabilities and threaded emails but then there was Tip Jar, Google China and Emoticons. Not to mention the hotly debated EOM.

Now Google offers it’s latest service – Google Buzz. On the surface this sounds like a harmless tool that is intended to compete with or at least respond to the popularity of Twitter and Facebook. I don’t use any social networking tool/site (other than LinkedIn) but I thought I’d give this a shot. After all it was integrated into my Gmail and didn’t even require any setting up to get started. And that’s where we have a problem.

As of now, Google’s algorithm just picks people out of your email box for you to follow and be followed by, regardless of whether they are friends, spouses, mistresses, stalkers, or enemies.

Worse, the list of your followers and followees is made public by default, so anyone can see it.

Put simply, Google just let the whole world peek into your email Inbox, without ever asking you if you wanted it to do that.
- Henry Blodget

I use my private Gmail account to email my boyfriend and my mother. There’s a BIG drop-off between them and my other “most frequent” contacts. You know who my third most frequent contact is. My abusive ex-husband.

Which is why it’s SO EXCITING, Google, that you AUTOMATICALLY allowed all my most frequent contacts access to my Reader, including all the comments I’ve made on Reader items, usually shared with my boyfriend, who I had NO REASON to hide my current location or workplace from, and never did.
- Harriet Jacobs

Whether you call it a huge privacy flaw or just an annoyance, Google Buzz can put the contacts you automatically follow—a.k.a. those you most frequently email or chat—on a public profile page. Here’s how to undo that. Want Google Buzz gone entirely? Log into Gmail, then look at the bottom of your inbox page for a “Turn off Buzz” link.