Recommended Reading

Slashdot highlights for January 31st

Oddworld game designer takes the series to the big screen

Seven ways to be mistaken for a spammer

Geophysicists try to choke a volcano with concrete and steel

Teen fights back, accuses record companies of collusion

DRM in the BitTorrent Age (great article!)

Apple ordered to play legal fees for free rights blogger movement

Forget Second Life, how about a first life?*

*If you’re not familiar with Second Life, you should probably acquaint yourself.

Blood Diamond

I knew a bit about the dodgy dealings in the diamond industry before going to see this movie. My wife in fact does not wear a diamond on her finger; her engagement ring is adorned with a moissanite. But having now seen Blood Diamond there’s even more going on than I had realised.

I’d recommend you go and see it. For a few reasons… first and foremost (because this is a movie review) it’s a GREAT piece of cinema. Incredible performances from Honsou and de Caprio. Best actor material for both of them. To those who’ve not seen the film and More >

Microsoft, up until the year 2007

I’ve got a 2 part story coming up here, a story of reinvention, of dreams lost, and of dreams reborn. This is the first part.

    Microsoft. In the last forever…

It’s a known fact, that almost 10 years ago, Microsoft had already defined office productivity software. Microsoft Office is the most widely used office productivity software in the world, by far, and is Microsoft’s bread and butter. It allows Macs to do “work stuff” too. In the last 10 years however, Microsoft have not done too much to improve upon their formular. They’ve “sat upon their laurels,” as it were.

Up until some More >

The Trouble with Islam Today

by Irshad Manji.

It’s actually a really important book. This kind of thing needed to be written, and not just for the reasons you’ll assume from it’s title. It’s written by a Canadian Muslim journalist, and is about Islam, Islam’s treatment of the Jews, of women, of other Muslims… and why it’s time for Islam to stop blaming the West for their problems and take a long hard evaluatory look at themselves. In addition to the usual ones, the author very recently received quite a credible death threat from a prominent Muslim authority. Her book is incredibly eye opening about a lot More >

And now it’s time for the cartoon

Maija had the pleasure of interviewing one of her univeristy professors recently regarding the college program at York University. After he found out she was a Christian, all he wanted to discuss with her were the infamous Muhammad cartoons.

Ahh cartoons. Sweet sweet cartoons. Much like alcohol; the cause and solution to all of life’s problems. My wife recently commented on my cousin’s blog (regarding this issue) that she secretly likes reading cartoons, as they get away with saying all kinds of things.

But… as we all now the Mohammad cartoons have developed into a serious issue. Heck, they’re in Wikipedia! If More >

Thursday @ Puddles

If you’re in Toronto any given Thursday, give us Puddle’s a ring and pop on by after 7pm for some informal prayer and worship (with free trance music). If you need our address and/or phone number, drop me an e-mail: jpuddy [at] gmail [dot] com

75 Bands

Click this link, there are 75 bands referenced in the image. See how many you can find, then see what I’ve found.

I found 20 so far: Queen, Sex Pistols (haha, it’s funny), Guns ‘n Roses, Matchbox 20, Smashing Pumpkins, Prince, Led Zepelin, The B-52s, The Eagles, Alice in Chains, 50 Cent, The Postalservice, Rob Zombie, Madonna, Cypres Hill(?), The Monkeys, Nine Inch Nails, Rolling Stones, Garbage (?), Beach Boys

Update: The Police, Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2, The White Stripes.

Restrospective Perspective

I just downloaded Free Download Manager. I downloaded it using my current download manager, Download Accelerator Plus, which I have been loyal to for many years ever since I stopped using Getright back in the 90′s. (Hehe, that sounds funny.) I wonder how DAP feels – if it knows that I just used it to download it’s replacement. Given that knowledge, I wonder if it would have behaved differently: downloaded faster, used less advertising. Who knows? Truth be told I just wanted a smaller footprint.

On a vaguely similar note (which is actually what this post is about) my wife and I More >

Life, and death

Currently I am more happy and more alive than I have ever been my entire life. I feel now like life has been an unopened flower: a rather attractive unopened flower, with but a few thorns, it’s potential still unknown. And now it seems the flower has blossomed into a beautiful rose. It’s petals are still slowly pushing further outward, and it’s getting more beautiful and more fragrant as the hours go by. Or days and weeks in my case. Tomorrow will mark 2 months of being married to the most beautiful woman in the world.

Life, is amazing.

This weekend More >

untitled

I had wanted a chance to go off into the wilderness, literally. To be away from any other human being and fairwell myself before I got married, but things didn’t work out that way. So… here I am.

My name is Jonathan Puddle. I’m the son of a man named Stephen. A creative man, a funny and talented man. A times a loud man, and at times a quiet man. At times a complicated man. But a man I’ve always been close with, always been friends with, and always will be. I’m the son of a woman named Rhonda. A wise, More >