Check out this story about a guy named Herman Libshitz who couldn’t get the email address he wanted because of Verizon’s policy that email addresses and usernames not contain profanity.

Up until yesterday, you could buy an application for your iPhone that costs $999.99.

What does it do?

Nothing.

Not a darn thing.

It simply puts that red icon in your iPhone’s desktop so that people will see it and know that you are so wealthy that you can afford to waste money just for prestige…

Apple pulled the app, apparently on a moral basis…

You can read the whole story on the LATimes here.

but it got me think: what’s the difference between this app and, say, spending $100 bucks for a pair of jeans that you could get for $25 without the label that says ‘Diesel’ or ‘Polo’?

Any thoughts?

]]> http://zackriesland.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/its-like-air-jordans-for-your-iphone/feed/ 0 zackriesland http://zackriesland.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/pray-for-the-family/ http://zackriesland.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/pray-for-the-family/#comments Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:52:16 +0000 Zack http://zackriesland.wordpress.com/?p=485 ]]>

Greg Laurie is the pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship, where almost everyone in my family first learned about the Gospel.

His son, Christopher, was in a fatal car accident yesterday.

He has a toddler daughter and pregnant wife who he left behind.

Please keep their family in prayer, and stop by Greg’s blog and leave a comment to let him and his family know that you’re praying.

So it’s been almost a week since you’ve seen anything on this here blog or twitter get updated.

There’s a reason for that: I started my new job Tuesday.

With the new job comes a new office with new rules and new people. Here’s the skinny so far:

• It’s 78 miles from our driveway to my new office :0( (I have to work in Greensboro for a couple of months, and then my drive will be much shorter).
• In 78 miles, I do not pass a single Starbucks :0(
• There is free coffee at work :0)
• The free coffee at work is terrible :0(
• There is a cafeteria at work where I can buy better coffee :0)
• That coffee is also pretty terrible :0(
• The pens at work are very nice :0)
• I am not allowed to use iTunes anymore :0(
• I am not allowed to use Twitter anymore :0(
• I am not allowed to use Facebook anymore :0(
• So far I have listened to three sermons, one episode of ‘Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me’, and half an episode of “This American Life” on the road to and from work :0)
• My blog is not on the list of stuff I’m not allowed to mess with at work :0)
• It takes me about 10 minutes to walk from my car to my cube :0|
• They give out free newspapers at the door :0)
• The cubes at work are very short, so we can stand up and see each other :0)
• The office is always freezing cold :0(
• I walk through a huge factory where they make gas pumps on the way to my cube :0)
• They have assigned me a very nice, very patient brother in Christ to teach me everything I need to know :0)
• My first day my teammates took me out to lunch and we ended up collectively witnessing to out manager the whole time :0) :0) :0)

I’ll have to update you some more when there’s time!

]]> http://zackriesland.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/zaney-acrobatic-charismatic-kicker/feed/ 0 zackriesland http://zackriesland.wordpress.com/2008/06/12/some-quick-links/ http://zackriesland.wordpress.com/2008/06/12/some-quick-links/#comments Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:36:34 +0000 Zack http://zackriesland.wordpress.com/?p=433 ]]>

Every time I come across something I want to draw your attention to via this blog, I leave it open in a tab, in hopes that some day I’ll have time to write what I really want to write about it.

…that hasn’t happened in a while though

And now my computer tells me that it must reboot to apply some security changes, so I’m going to throw a few links at you before I have to close my browser. I hope you’ll take time to look:

Uzbekistan TV Campaign Against Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses

This is something I experienced first-hand while I was overseas. People are literally brainwashed as their own fearless (revolting excuse for a man) leader comes on national television and tells them that Christians are only in their country to steal away their culture. And it’s effective. Here’s an excerpt (emphasis mine):

On Saturday 17 May state television broadcast in prime time a report describing such groups as a “global problem, along with religious dogmatism, fundamentalism, terrorism, and drug addiction,” actively involved in deceiving young people and minors.

The documentary featured Uzbek religious and political experts, state officials as well as representatives of the other religions, all of whom took a critical view of missionaries.

People are literally taught that the Gospel is as dangerous as terrorism or drug addiction.

I guess in a way it is…

Uzbekistan: Longest-Held Political Prisoner Free After Two Decades In Jail

The United Nations has decided that Uzbekistan has the 5th most corrupt government in the world.

And cotton is a big deal.

It’s a cash crop.

Farmers are literally forced to grow cotton and sell it to their government at substandard wages, while their families starve because of the essential foods that are not grown instead. University students are forced to take 4-8 weeks during the summer to pick cotton for the government, for free. And this guy was sent to jail for most of his life, why: because he made it work. That’s why there’s such a pervasive sense of hopeless in Central Asia. Because it seems like people are punished for doing anything but suffering…

Why do I share this? Because I want you to pray.

Adoniram Judson’s Advice to Missionaries

I found this on the Desiring God blog. If you don’t know who Adoniram Judson was, then you owe it to yourself to look him up. Desiring God has some great free resources, and I believe for a dollar or two you can buy a 1 1/2 hour talk by Piper about his life. The short version of the story is: The Gospel is alive in Burmha because of Judson’s amazing dedication and sacrifice. Here are a couple of his points to anyone who would be a missionary:

First, then, let it be a missionary life; that is, come out for life, and not for a limited term. Do not fancy that you have a true missionary spirit, while you are intending all along to leave the heathen soon after acquiring their language. Leave them! for what? To spend the rest of your days in enjoying the ease and plenty of your native land?

Fifthly. Beware of the reaction which will take place soon after reaching your field of labor. There you will perhaps find native Christians, of whose merits or demerits you can not judge correctly without some familiar acquaintance with their language. Some appearances will combine to disappoint and disgust you. You will meet with disappointments and discouragements, of which it is impossible to form a correct idea from written accounts, and which will lead you, at first, almost to regret that you have embarked in the cause. You will see men and women whom you have been accustomed to view through a telescope some thousands of miles long. Such an instrument is apt to magnify. Beware, therefore, of the reaction you will experience from a combination of all these causes, lest you become disheartened at commencing your work, or take up a prejudice against some persons and places, which will embitter all your future lives.

Eighthly. Never lay up money for yourselves or your families. Trust in God from day to day, and verily you shall be fed.

Seventhly. Beware of pride; not the pride of proud men, but the pride of humble men — that secret pride which is apt to grow out of the consciousness that we are esteemed by the great and good. This pride sometimes eats out the vitals of religion before its existence is suspected. In order to check its operations, it may be well to remember how we appear in the sight of God, and how we should appear in the sight of our fellow-men, if all were known. Endeavor to let all be known. Confess your faults freely, and as publicly as circumstances will require or admit. When you have done something of which you are ashamed, and by which, perhaps, some person has been injured (and what man is exempt?), be glad not only to make reparation, but improve the opportunity for subduing your pride.

(Read all 10 here.)

Silk Road to the Present

This is an article from the Moscow Times about the city where I spent a year. It’s funny to hear someone talk about the city from a tourist’s perspective, but it’s interesting none-the-less.

Uzbekistan: International Groups Blast Tashkent’s “Media Freedom Conference”

Excerpt:

The idea was that major international rights groups — including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, the International Crisis Group, and the Open Society Institute — would attend and contribute to a frank exchange on a topic that generally makes the region’s leaders squeamish.

At the last minute, however, Uzbek officials scrapped the plans for an EU-Uzbek conference on civil society. Instead they staged an “Uzbek version” of the gathering that participants and would-be participants said fell far short of Brussels’ goals.

This is how they role in that good ol’ corrupt country.

Pray for Uzbekistan y’all.

Very excited about this new EP, called ‘Ampersand’, from Derek Webb and his wife, Sandra.

Alright folks. I’ve been listening to “Wait, Wait: Don’t Tell Me” this morning, and I’ve narrowed down the dumb news stories of the week to two. Now you have to pick: Which is dumber:

A sales supervisor who used waterboarding to motivate his sales team (not a joke).

or

John McCain’s compaign trying to pass off Rachel Ray’s recipes from the Food Network website as “old time McCain family classics”

You choose

This is no joke!

Lali, the baby pictured above, was born in India recently. She is being worshiped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess.  You can read more here.

I’m sure you’ve seen all the blog uproar about the song “Shout To The Lord” being used on the show American Idol. I honestly didn’t think too much of it when I first heard it. My knee jerk reaction was to be even more disillusioned with Hollywood that they took the word ‘Jesus’ out of the song. And more than anything, I was shocked that Hillsong (the people who own the song) would allow it. But this blog post by Joshua Harris changed my perspective on the matter, and really challenged me about what it means to be a follower of Jesus and to represent Him on this earth.

(and it turns out that Hillsong gave permission to use the song, but not to change it)

What do you think?

I was listening to NPR this morning, and heard an interesting story. Apparently, the Dr. Seus book “Horton Hears a Who” has always been associated with the abortion debate. The premise of the book is that an elephant discovers that a whole world of “who’s” live on a dust speck that he discovers, so he devotes himself to defending it, often repeating the mantra, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

According to NPR, at the preview of the movie recently, people began to yell when that line was spoken in the movie, and there were protesters outside. It looks like there’s going to be a lot of talk about the issue while the movie is popular.

I’m actually really excited about that. When I got married, Steph made me study up on birth control, and the differences in how they work. I learned that planned parenthood actually changed their definition of conception several years ago to make their agenda work. It was discovered that many forms of birth control affect the lining of the uterus and make it difficult for a fetus to attach to it and grow, so they changed the definition of conception to be the moment when a fetus attaches to the uterus, rather than the moment when an egg is fertilized to be come a fetus.  So Horton’s line, “A person’s a person, no matter how small” is pretty powerful.

I’m excited. This should make for some interesting dialog!

As a sidenote: I’ve had several conversations about this topic with friends at work recently, and it seems like many people are interested in this topic and are afraid to ask about it/talk about it. If you fall into that group, there’s a fantastic teaching about birth control by Mark Driscoll that you can download for free from iTunes here. You can also watch the video for free at MarsHillChurch.org. Click on the link for “Religion Saves, and 9 other misconceptions.”