33 Things: The Week’s Amusing and Intriguing Links

If you are amused by the aesthetics of Disney zombie art or Nietzschean cartoons, intrigued by articles on C.S. Lewis or how to think about sin or–this is the best one–interested in how you are actually being productive by reading this 33 Things rather than tackling that to-do list, this is the week for you.

1. Modern furniture design: it may or may not be comfortable, but it sure looks awesome.
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2. I wish I treated sin like my body treats puke.You see, with throwing up, there’s no middle ground. There’s no casual element to throwing up. There’s no half heartedness to food poisoning. With a violence rarely exhibited, your body expels some toxin or wrongness from your stomach as fast as it can. There is little room for debate or discussion. It happens and it happens with a swiftness.But when I try to turn away from the spiritual toxins in my life, I often approach them much differently. I sidle up to them. I spoon them a little. I debate back and forth about whether they’re really all that bad. I make excuses. I argue and ponder and stall and drag my feet. I don’t expel. I throw away and then return to the garbage to rescue hours later.
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3. Neuromarketing. You heard me. Campbell’s is testing brains to determine how to sell product. Frightening.“The self-reporting associated with market research is notoriously flawed, and in 2005 Campbell’s acknowledged the weak correlation between highly rated advertising and actual buying habits. To suss out people’s actual intentions, Campbell’s utilized experts in the growing field of neuromarketing. In neuromarketing, specialists monitor involuntary biometric changes in subjects as they view different images. Since the subjects can’t control these changes, neuromarketers believe they reveal the real feelings of consumers.”
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4. Mic salesmen, your ship is coming in.  What all churches MUST do by June 12 – and why:“There’s going to be a wide array of potential penalties, including civil and/or criminal penalties,” Nodine says. “We always look at things on a case-by-case basis, but obviously, any interference with public safety will be looked at with greater scrutiny.”
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5. Bill Keane and Friedrich Nietzsche…two thing I never thought I’d see in the same space: The Nietzsche Family Circus (thanks to Dr. Fred Sanders for this one!)
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6. John Piper helps to put C. S. Lewis into helpful perspective.
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7. Beware the incredible, unpayable, ever-expanding student loan!  Groan at its fury! Shrink before its penalty fees! And for goodness sakes, read the fine print next time BEFORE you get yourself into this mess.
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8. Too cheap for Turbotax?  Don’t worry, the IRS will help you give them all your money.  For free!
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9. Here’s a site that is both incredibly attractive and demonstrates remarkable innovation – oh, and it’s built by the Australian government.Seriously, you can set up your own hologram of a sub complete with a torpedo that fires!
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10. Lost – you know, that show from the 1960′s that no one remembers.  Turns out, it’s been done before.  Kind of.:
    
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11. “Recovering Scripture” is the theme for 2010 on the White Horse Inn radio show, and this week the hosts continue their look at the book of Galatians as an example of how to interpret and apply Scripture in the 21st century.
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12. Is it possible to talk about the Cross too much?
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13. Conservatives signed a new ‘statement of faith’ this week.  Soul-searching much?
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14. The 10 quirkiest Congressional tweeters make us wonder – which of the venerable Founding Fathers would have used Twitter well?
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15. Ten Rules for Writing Fiction by Famous British Writers.
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16. Part 2 (of Ten Rules for Writing Fiction by Famous British Writers. (Hey, two links is two links!)
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17. This summer, credit cards will become sweeter, gentler, more communicative bastions of doom.
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18. Disney Zombie Art.
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19. Undead and American: Johnny Cash is back!
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20. A short guide to creating an online following.
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21. This American Life’s Ira Glass, on how he was bad before he was good.
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22. In light of Lindsay’s post on social justice, a handy “report card” for most products’ global impact.
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23. Apologist Sean McDowell debates noted Atheist about God and Morality-Orange County on Friday, February 26.
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24. Facilitating Class Registration for Despondent Students.
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25. The Onion tells us of the dangers of graduate study.
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26. Proof that goofing off online IS productive!
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27. Another link for Lost fans: How Hurley’s like a Greek Chorus (scroll down a few paragraphs) “The producers, it would seem, are turning Hurley into the Greek chorus of the show—a reflection of what the audience is thinking. It’s like we elected Hurley as our union representative, and then sent him to the island to stick up for us. (NBC’s Community, a charming little quirk of a show, is also trying the character-as-audience-reflection trick. A character named Abed points out the show’s pop-cultural allusions as they happen.)”
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28. Freakonomics’ blogger explores the relationship of men and women in taking the (literal) steering wheel.
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29. A real-life Where’s Waldo.
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30. EO should name an award after her for the writer who can spark the most comments from his/her post.  All hail the matriarch:“WHEN Yitta Schwartz died last month at 93, she left behind 15 children, more than 200 grandchildren and so many great- and great-great-grandchildren that, by her family’s count, she could claim perhaps 2,000 living descendants.Mrs. Schwartz was a member of the Satmar Hasidic sect, whose couples have nine children on average and whose ranks of descendants can multiply exponentially. But even among Satmars, the size of Mrs. Schwartz’s family is astonishing. A round-faced woman with a high-voltage smile, she may have generated one of the largest clans of any survivor of the Holocaust — a thumb in the eye of the Nazis.”
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31. Two things: First, worship is something you experience, not something you yourself have to participate in.  Second, it’s an experience that can be created On Demand and a-la-carte (HT: Dave Martina)
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32. Harry Potter expert John Granger on Why Reading Matters: Great Books and the Life in Christ.
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33. Why must everything always be easier?  “Although basic currency doesn’t explain foreign genocide, highly-intuitive Japanese kids let machines narrate old peoples’ quiet recollections, seeking to ultimately vanquish Wichita’s xenophobic young zealots.”

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