Camera on a Sword
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Bag of Randomness
- Each year I really enjoy watching the Kennedy Center Honors and feel I always leave more cultured than before. I can’t imagine the emotion an honoree must feel as they watch peers and other greats honor their work in a live performance. As a kid, I couldn’t appreciate what I was seeing because those being honored didn’t have a impact on my life, but as an adult, it can pack an emotional wallop.
- I’ve looked and looked but I can’t find anything that tells me the meaning or inspiration behind the medallions on the honorees necks.
- While watching the tribute to Merl Haggard I decided to read upon his past and wasn’t aware he is a liberal leaning kinda person.
- Caroline sure was showing her age last night.
- One of my long time readers is a college football reporter and keeps a website called CFBExaminer.com, you can read more about him here. His website has been nominated for BallHyped Sports Blog of the Year, and if you think his website is worthy enough of this honor, then please vote for him here. And even if you don’t think he’s worthy of the title, please just vote for him since he’s part of the BoN family.
- The NY Times has a great article on how Walt Disney World tackles the problems of long lines using an underground nerve center under Cinderella Castle that includes video cameras, computer programs, digital park maps, and all sorts of countermeasures. I thought the timing of the article was interesting as Disneyland was so busy yesterday it actually sold out.
- Tim Tebow can’t put a Bible verse on his eye black any more so he puts it on his wrist.
- Those darn Muslims were at it again
- It had to be a slow, slow news day yesterday on WFAA. One of their lead stories was about a couple that found a bad wedding photographer and how they still don’t have their pictures. Really? That’s news in the fourth largest media market? People get screwed over bad businesses all the time yet somehow this couple made the news? Sheesh.
- I have a feeling that new Paula Abdul show is doomed for failure.
- Bad Science in Movies Chart
- The largest home in Arizona just started construction – about 100,000 square feet under roof
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Return Gifts Before You Receive Them
Amazon.com has a great idea, but why did they have to pick on Aunt Mildred.
Undoubtedly, the Thread and Bobbin Sewing Kit that Aunt Mildred sent from Amazon.com for Christmas will never see a stitch.
Gifts sent via some warehouse many miles away are not only unwanted, but also a multimillion-dollar headache: They have to be repacked, labeled, dropped off and shipped back to Amazon’s Island of Misfit Toys. Then a new present has to be packed, labeled and shipped again. Efficient, the process is not.
Amazon is working on a solution that could revolutionize digital gift buying. The online retailer has quietly patented a way for people to return gifts before they receive them, and the patent documents even mention poor Aunt Mildred. Amazon’s innovation, not ready for this Christmas season, includes an option to “Convert all gifts from Aunt Mildred,” the patent says. “For example, the user may specify such a rule because the user believes that this potential sender has different tastes than the user.” In other words, the consumer could keep an online list of lousy gift-givers whose choices would be vetted before anything ships.
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New e-Bible is Big Business
Less than a week ago, Bible mega-publisher Zondervan released its newest translation of the New International Version of the Bible and saw it fly up the charts to become the top seller in the Apple store under Religion/Spirituality and No. 13 seller across all categories over Christmas weekend. On Amazon, it was No. 3, at $9.99 behind older Bibles selling for $1.99.
This is the first time any Bible translation has gone straight to digital. The print version goes on sale in March.
Before the e-book launch, this new NIV was pretty much known only to scholars looking for changes in critical language. Zondervan already updated their original 1978-published NIV classic once this decade. The disastrous Today’s New International Bible, flamed out after scathing controversies over whether the translation was “gender accurate,” “gender neutral” or just theologically off base by dropping the old familiar pronouns that a bank of scholars ruled didn’t really express the original manuscripts.
Back to the drawing boards. This time Zondervan leadership got out in front of critics. As promised two years ago when they announced the new, new NIV would be underway, they brought in in scholars, pastors, missionaries and laypeople to review any text changes with the Committee on Bible Translation.
Their e-book Bibles are now 25% of Zondervan’s e-book revenue, according to a press release from the company, today.