There was an interesting study in 1993 that asked the question, "Why are mainline churches declining in numbers?" The answer was quite surprising (to me). Looking primarily at Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, statistics tell us that between 1960 and 1990 these churches l...

I've been looking for a replacement for my iBook for some time now.  I didn't want something too awesome because things too awesome have a way of distracting me from using my laptop powers for good (writing) and instead using them for evil (warcraft).  All I really needed was som...

6:30 PM - Student Readings: Hugo Writing Classes Richard Hugo House Winter quarter students read from their work and dish out potluck. Hot-dish! [LINK] 7:00 PM - Earl Emerson: Cape Disappointment UW Bookstore, U-District This guy, again. What did I say last time? Oh, yeah: “After a 10 year hia...

I'm going to throw a term out there and see if any of you know what it means: "capillary electrophoresis". Yeah, probably not too many out there who know that one (Science PhD Mom excluded). But that was just for fun. Let's try the next one: "church discipline". Not ringing any bells? I'm not surpri...

HA! I KNEW it! You Are Not a Jerk You treat everyone as fairly as possible. You think it's important to be good to people.You may feel like being rude at times, but you hold back. You are civilized.While you......

It is hard for me to believe that we didn’t post anything about Kindle 2. The Los Angeles Times has an interesting summary about the new Kindle. Here is a video of Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos briefly introducing Kindle 2. The Kindle 2 is sleeker and faster, stores more books and keeps a charge longer....

An anti-theist ("anti-theist" differs from "atheist" in that one is on a campaign to rid us of God while the other is simply personally convinced there is no God) offered this common objection to the existence of God. "I can imagine a world where humans have free will but always choose good, where n...

The “food safety” bills in Congress were written by Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc. All are associated with the opposite of food safety. What is this all about then? In the simplest terms, organic food and a rebirth of farming were winning. Not in absolute numbers but in a deep and ...

I am not a runner. All of my life I have not found running to be something I enjoyed. I know ... there are lots of you who say, "Oh, running is just so great! You really feel good afterward!" Not me. I never got it. To me it was all pain, no gain. Running is not part of my nature. I can swim just fi...

And they say it’s hard to conquer the browser market. Despite Microsoft’s global domination, there are some places where Firefox is a vastly dominant browser. One of them is Antarctica; according to StatCounter’s recently added feature, GlobalStats, in 2009, only one browser was us...