With ers Without You

In recent travels it’s been made known to me that the next big thing after sliced bread and the colour ‘black’ is this internet thing we’re all keen about at the moment. The music industry has been shaken to the very core of recent times with blame being laid firmly on those pesky mp3’s and Apple Computer’s but it seems not all is bad in the world of 1’s and 0’s.

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We Are Hunted is a collaborative effort between Native Digital and Wotnews that draws on the people power that is social networking and blogs to create a chart of the hottest 99 tracks in the world today. The technology behind the site is the same technology used to aggregate the news on Wotnews.com.au.

I threw an email their way with a few questions attached about how the chart was run and where it was going and this is how it all went down.

JW: What has been the driving force behind your team’s development of wearehunted.com? WAH: We are huge music fans and consume music online, each in different ways. We had a mix of skills and decided to put together an essential online music property - something we wanted to visit every day.

JW: The website states the chart is driven by sentiment, expression and advocacy. Would you explain that on a more human and practical level. Is there an emotions engine that measures how many times a song title has the word “omg” next to it or do real people scour real blogs and websites? WAH: The engine is automated. Our analysis includes sentiment detection to work out whether people like or dislike a track. Semantics to understand who people are talking about. Clustering and classification to group related artists and their noise. And network analysis to uncover the connections between artists and the people who write about them.

JW: Do industry sources, for good or for evil, have any impact on the chart? (i.e. Record labels, distributors or artists) WAH: None whatsoever.

JW: Today on the chart there are remixes of current popular songs, mainstream popular music and a good portion are independent or emerging artists. There has even been some older popular songs come back into the chart. How would you say this reflects the community who influence the chart. WAH: I think there is definitely a diversity of music tastes out there. Even within our team there’s a love for everything from commercial to rare DnB.

JW: Traditional charts have been geographically based and also split up into genres along with a mainstream chart. We Are Hunted has been billed as the chart for the people but the people still live in different cultures and have different music tastes, how will wearehunted.com reflect this diversity? WAH: We Are Hunted will reflect the aggregate of all these people’s online musical activity.

JW: What vision have you got for the chart into the next 6 months and the next 1-3 years? WAH: First and foremost we want the site to be an essential destination for its users. We access and analyse extraordinary amounts of data and we intend to work with companies to help them know and understand what we know.

I’m a big fan of what is happening in the We Are Hunted camp, it’s a website you can set to be your homepage because every day it’s a new chart. As a web application it runs very nicely and smoothly, you can click on a song and listen to it, although some of the audio is sometimes missing or a very different mix to the radio release or even album release.

The music you’ll find on there is very diverse, mainstream through to indie and everywhere in between. Typically it is music that demographically is appreciated by the 18-30 year old age bracket because they are the people that are typically blogging or tweeting about the music they’re loving, but that’s alright by me because I’m 27 and loving the music on the chart.

Load it up, set it as your home page and start blogging cause We Are Hunted is watching!

I had the most vivid dream last night that I met a girl whose family was in a cult, we fell in love, and the whole dream, which went all night, involved me rescuing me from her cazy family and crazy cult.

She was very cute and we were very much in love, then I woke up.

Interpretation please :P

I originally posted this on churchtechmatters.com. In our own words, CTM is "A site for tech volunteers written by tech volunteers and those that lead them". Check it out!

Amongst a team of volunteer’s in the tech/media/audio/visual/digerati department of the church, there are many valuable skills. The most prized possession is usually a set of ears to do an amazing sound mix, some people value the highly sought after talent of video editing MTV style. As much as these talents are sought after highly, I have different priorities.

I know in my church, in my department there is only one talent I prize above all others, dare I say many churches and perhaps even yours would be very similar.

Arriving (on time or early is preferable).

A video editing extraordinaire once offered his honed skills to me to serve in my church, we were going to do amazing things, yet never turned up. A certain sound engineer had the ears of an angel but was unable to be at anything when required. I’ve met many passionate people in my time serving at SURFCiTY Church but only only some of them have arrived, stayed, served and built the kingdom.

The only talent you can impress me with now after 6 years in the ministry is your ability to arrive (on time or early is preferable). Second to that is your ability to stay until the end, thirdly your ability to do what is asked of you.

Your university degree, or experience at another church and the hours you’ve spent reading manuals and training books means diddly squat when you’re not in a place where God can use it.

That’s my story at church, encouragment is thrown my way quite often, congregants think my videos are stunning, or that sound mix was delictable and my servanthood will surely be earning me treasures in heaven. My reply to them is that I am probably the least skilled, most unable person to be doing my job, but my team and self are the only ones arriving at 7:30am Sunday at the moment. My prayer is that others would arrive around me, replace me and do greater things than me, simply by arriving.

In his more recent post, Nick Charalambous talks about community, which as most topics do, got me thinking about that exactly same issue.

• We live in community
• We like community
• Our community annoys us
• We'd like to be selective of who is in our community
• Community is a nice fluffy word
• Community has the words common and unity in it
• Community sounds pov'ish
• Community also sounds kind of posh sometimes
• I want to be in a community, sometimes even your community
• Every other community looks better than ours.

• mutual dependence
• service
• faithfulness

Seth Godin always packs a punch in his/blog, and today is no different. Below is his suggestion for how you could spend the American National Day of Service. Now I know that a large majority of my readers are not American and Martin Luther King is not someone we annually celebrate, but you can’t take away the importance of a day of giving instead of receiveing. Maybe your national day of service could be today?

Monday, January 19 is Martin Luther King Day. And wonderfully, instead of adding yet another shopping day to the calendar, it's being transformed to a day of service.

If every person in the US spent an hour doing something selfless, useful and leveraged, what would happen? What if you and your circle committed to doing it an hour a day for a year? 300 million hours is a lot of hours for just one day, a year of that would change everything.

While I applaud stopgap contributions like helping out in a soup kitchen (where labor and supplies are really needed), I wonder how those that are lucky enough to be web savvy can create work that really adds leverage. What if you did one of these things every day?

Here are some ideas that you can do online or in your community, with time, not so much with money.

• Read a copy of the Lorax to a child that's never heard it.
• Teach someone how to sell their services on Craigslist, or how to use the web to find a job.
• Build a Squidoo lens every day for a year about a favorite author or musician and dedicate the proceeds to charity. 300 a year could earn tens of thousands of dollars for a cause you care about. That adds up to serious money.
• Start a blog and profile one worthy non-profit every single day.
• Go through your house and find beloved books that you're glad you read... and give them to the library.
• Find an artisan and redesign their website or help them figure out how to promote their work.
• Create and promote an online petition for a cause you care about.
• Make a video that teaches people how to do better in a job interview or balance a checkbook or spot consumer fraud.
• Start a Facebook group for like-minded people who support the same non-profit you do. Commit to spending time to promote it, organize the people there and actually create outcomes of value.
• Seek out a religion that isn't yours and volunteer to help build a bridge between your circle and theirs.
• Write ten letters a day to corporations seeking donations for a local homeless shelter.
• Find a tool that non-profits need online, and then organize some brilliant people to build it as an opensource utility.
• Find a cause that supports soldiers or diplomats or other public servants that are on the road, and make it easier for them to connect with people back home.
• Use Copilot to diagnose and fix computer problems for people or causes that can't afford fancy IT support. It's free on weekends.
• Find an entrepreneur in the developing world and become her email penpal. Daily advice and encouragement might save hundreds of lives.
• Lobby Congress with letters and blog posts to make a change to a law that doesn't benefit you at all, but helps the community in the long run.
• Write a great wikipedia article every day about a person who is changing the world for the better.
• Find video and remix it into an insanely viral video that promotes a cause that you believe in.

I had the most amazing honour of talking to Shane Claiborne about the life changing stuff he is in to, I’ve split it up into 5 lots of about 5 minutes each of interview. The interview took place in early January in 2009.

Shane Claiborne Interview - Part 1 of 5

Shane Claiborne Interview - Part 2 of 5

Shane Claiborne Interview - Part 3 of 5

Shane Claiborne Interview - Part 4 of 5

Shane Claiborne Interview - Part 5 of 5

If you don’t know who Shane Claiborne is, get out from under the rock and look here: it’s his his bio in 5 easy steps:

1. Graduate of Eastern University - (Tony Campolo's stomping ground)
2. The Simple Way
3. The Irreristable Revolution
4. Jesus for President
5. The Ordinary Radicals Documentary

Apple Inc. had an opportunity to go to the next level today, and before I sound to negative, I’ll give them another chance soon, but for today, they’ve missed out on a byte of the apple.

The Macworld expo has been a catalyst event for many years, it’s drawn many people to the kingdom of Apple, myself and Kent being two people wooed by a Macworld keynote. Apple recently announced this year’s Macworld would be their last, so I had high expectations of Steve and crew going out with a bang.

Today all we got was a fizzle:

1. iWork 2009 upgrade - the version number of the last iWork and the new one give you an idea of how much we were expecting that.
2. iLife 2009 upgrade - ditto
3. MacBook Pro 17" - wow ... a product you said was coming ... has come .... quick ... tell everyone!

Now I’m personally of the train of thought that Apple, and other companies can release what they want, when they want, and we are of our own free will to like or dislike, purchase or not purchase and to use or not use, so Apple’s lack of announcement today is to their loss really and I’m not losing sleep over it.

It is just interesting to see even the biggest trains grind to a halt simply because other trains are and less people are riding them. Apple’s philosophy has always been to keep on taking things to new levels, bigger, better, stronger, tomorrow, faster and newer.

Today we got a few software upgrades and Colbie Caillat teaching us how to play guitar …… yay!

After 27 years of intense research I have found the secret to my success … or that success which I have had … is a very simple formula:

Success = turning up

I know sickness is a real thing and yes I do sleep. Injury does hurt and money does run out, but all of my success has come in times which preachers call “breakthrough”. I call this … turning up.

Give it a go sometime and let me know how it all works out for you.

In today’s daily Seth’ness:

We spend so much time smoothing things out, we lose the opportunity for change, or for texture or creativity.

Instead of working so hard to make everything okay, perhaps it is more helpful to work hard at living with a world that rarely is.

That my friends is my story for 2009. Welcome to Josh version 27. Now if only I could get out of my shell and sing the lyrics of Wonderwall to that someone I might have a bigger smile on my face.

Tony Steward is on the new years resolution bandwagon, and although I have things I’d like to achieve I was steering clear of setting any clear goals, I’ve gone ahead and done so anyway.

1. Business - my goal is to start operating now, and by December, the business should be providing Mitch and myself with a full wage.

2. Ministry - Do Less – Do Better - it’s a simple statement, with a lot of underlying principals, simple things like working at church and not facebooking :) and also empowering others to do things that I’ve been holding on to.

3. Personal Life - exchange presence with people - not presents, but presence, in this current economic climate I think it’s got more worth than other commodities.

I’ve had some rostered time off from SURFCiTY from Dec 23 to this Sunday and it’s been odd.

I’ve loved the ability to do what I wanted when I wanted, albeit the need to fulfill a few responsibilities and there are still some which I’m yet to get too, most importantly reaching my goal of kickstarting our own business “Business Kickstart”.

But throughout this so called rest, I’ve never felt more sore, more tired, more sick, all year. It’s as though my body has seen the opportunity to get some stuff done and it’s doing it.

How weird that all year I just keep on moving forward and ignore anything my body brings up that looks like sickness or other, and then in these two weeks my body just fails.

It’s funny how these bodies that God gave us work.

In regards to the protest against the Islamic school, a few questions.

1. What is the reason for the protest?

2. If the reason for the protest is an Australian culture one, please remember how many Christians were on this island 230 years ago.

3. If it is a biblical reason please state how it overrides going into all the world to make disciples, and loving our neighbour as we do ourselves.

4. What precedent do you hope to set if a ruling is made against a school run by people of faith?

5. Have you thoroughly researched scripture, law and culture before you go out representing my God on Monday?

6. Have you considered the ill effects a protest in Jesus name could do to the greater body of Christ on the Gold Coast? (The effect being that the only time the community hears from us is when we don’t like something or someone)

7. Why would you bring an Australian flag to the protest? The Kingdom of God is home to people of all all flags, all cultures, all skin colours, all sexes and all different pasts. The unity is in our redemption, not which flag we hold true to.

Katy Perry rocked the airwaves in Australia with a controversial message “I Kissed a Girl” and not only did she do the unthinkable, but she liked it as well.

Katy Perry continues on her pop music express with the song Hot N Cold. Surprisingly for her critics, a song that isn’t peddling for or against a minority (49% of the world are men, 49% is not a minority).

It seems Katy is not as gay as the haters would like you to think, who’s to know but her, and who’s to care but her.

Some people just like to have fun, and some people like to ruin it. At the risk of being framed as a lover of evil, which one are you, a fun maker or a fun ruiner?

And why?

Seth Godin (Google ‘Seth’ for his Blog) spoke recently about Cadillac dealers and other human beings, and how people are people too, and you need to respect that. If it’s important to a Cadillac dealer, or if “it’s” important to you, then it actually is important.

Talking about this new recognition of importance in someone’s life, he says that faith is different to religion, faith is something that everyone has, everyone has faith in something or someone, the difference with religion is that it amplifies someone’s faith, it supports the faith.

The problem with religion is that it maintains status quo, and it becomes unchallengeable.

Where I’m actually going with this is that Seth has recognised his calling, to be an agent of change in faith, not religion, and that everyone has a faith, and that faith they have; is important - to them - and YOU need to respect that.

Why? No-one has ever made friends and influenced people without a small measure of respect at the beginning of the relationship; and perhaps even a bit more respect continuing on into the relationship.

Faith changes often, but for you to be a part of that you might want to recognise that faith already exists and you need to respect that straight up.

In today’s paper Mayor Clarke admits he has trouble finding a carpark so he parks illegally. Before we even talk Rapid Transit System or his refusal to acknowledge the growth of the city, and it’s current needs stemming from that growth and it’s current trajectory, the Mayor cannot find a carpark.

I love the fact he doesn’t have a driver, and he drives a Prius but I especially love that he can’t find a car park, because it’s a situation that I’ve been in more than once. The difference being in my situation is that I won’t pay $35 for a good park and I’m not good mates with the parking inspectors.

It’s good that we find out our Mayor is just as human as us and just as troubled by our City’s woes as we are, if only he would now act on it.

Upgrade the public transport way past our needs, and encourage growth, in all areas of the city, not just the developments that line your pockets Ron.

You can’t live a lie forever Ron.

I just wanted to spread some positive and truthful information in light of recent news that Australians have lost at least $36 million dollars to internet money scams.

Without ruling out the divine hand of God bringing finance into a situation, here are some guidelines for receiving money via email or internet.

• If you receive and email offering you/blessing you/giving you money it is a scam.
• If you’ve never met the person it is a scam. - If you have never heard of the price/princess/king/queen/

Ben Harper sings on his latest album, in the song “Fight Outta You”: “I’d rather find out who you are, than who you’re not”.

I found out who Dale was, Barney was and who I was on Sunday morning about 1am as we left Three Beans Cafe in Broadbeach to go back to our cars parked at the rear of the National Australia Bank. We walked past the Barcode Nightclub and were set up by some Native NZ boys.

One very large bloke set us up, then two others jumped the three of us. They punched Barney in the jaw, and then the two proceeded to Dale and myself.

I’m not sure what went through the other two minds, but for myself it played out like this: a) You can talk yourself out of this b) Do I scream at them all tellign them to stop in the name of Jesus c) God …. what would Jesus do in this situation d) Far out he punched me e) I can tackle him real easy f) Turn the other cheek??? g) Punched again a few times (2-3 I think)

As the maori boys ran off I jumped in my car and encouraged the other boys to do the same. I sped off down Albert St onto Surf Parade and saw the girls walking back with Zay. Making a quick phone call to Katie to make sure she left asap I arranged with Dale and Barney to meet them at Gold Coast Hospital where we were checked out, I was fine with a black eye, Dale was fine and Barney had a broken jaw.

Jumping forward to today, two days on, after banter, photos, laughs and alot of thought I was asked about the incident once more and the onversation was rather simple.

Was there heaps of them? No, only two Were they bigger than you? No Were they stronger than you? No Were they better fighters than you? No I guess you just locked up? No etc etc.

I simply had no answer apart from at the moment it happened I asked the Holy Spirit what to do, and he said “Turn the other cheek”, although I too judged myself on the strength/manliness/awesome

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I was a little down today and was listening to Hillsong United on my iPhone and the song “Reason I Live” came on, instead of singing along as usual I listened instead.

They sing “Jesus You are the reason I live” and I thought about why I live, what purpose or hope am I straddling with all my might and power.

In the previous 26 years I’ve been alive I haven’t really been given any perplexing reason to continue on living this life I’ve been so generously given.

Friends, people, workmates come and go like the wind and family has a similar flow. I’m not working toward a financial or material prize that a mysterious person will present to me one day, nor do I know of an Eden like place where we get to go after we’ve worked hard enough.

Don’t confuse my rant today with an eternal existence in heaven, I’m talking about this life, not the next.

As far as I know there is no medal presentation and closing ceremony somewhere soon. All I see is hard work, heartbreak, anguish and pain ahead.

A drunkard I picked up last weekend told me of his plan to retire before he turns 40, but not even the prospect of laziness setting in earlier than normal is attractive to me.

Not even a lifetime of being on radio or servanthood at my church brings a glimmer of hope to me, it just makes me want for more coffee or maybe a chill pill. The ideal of marriage and children immediately sounds good but then it just seems to perpetrate the cycle only delaying the anguish unto my children.

There is an exception for me though.

Jesus.

Where friends, colleauges, employers, family, politicians, pastors, girls and guys fail, Jesus stands strong and bold, with a message, instruction and hope that rings true and holds to a purpose and hope that actually has roots in something bigger and better than a smalltown family or a relationship with another person.

Jesus lives today and he is the reason I live. Without Jesus you wouldn’t be reading this message today friend, because today I looked at my situation, my finances, my relationships, my responsibilities and I really didn’t think it was worth it.

But then Jesus gave me some perspective.

He tells me about running the race and fighting the good fight. He gives me a purpose in my family, a purpose in my relationships and a purpose in situations around me.

Jesus teaches me about the purpose and reason in friendships, relationships, girlfriends and wives, colleagues and employers, family and relatives. Of course with all of the love and conflict that comes with the above.

And out of that, I realize that suicide could be the most selfish thing a man could consider to do.

Now before you refer me to your favourite shrink (hopefully mine will still see me after this) would you do me a favour and consider what your reason for living is, and secondly would you consider making that reason Jesus.

An American comedian once told a friend that he had made a new invention.

He tells the friend, that you get this leaf and you dry it, crush it down, roll it in paper, secure the ends, and light one end on fire. Once the end is burning you put the other end in your mouth and suck on it.

The friend says that sounds great, and he asks, “Does it get you high”. The comedian replies, “no”. “Does it make you healthy” the friend asks, the comedian replies negatively. After a few more questions with similar answers, the friend says to the comedian, “this invention sounds great” and walks off stunned.

The joke of course lies in the purpose of the cigarette, and for those in the dark, the humble cigarette provides no purpose or benefit to those of us here on earth. On Mars it may present us with something new, but for the meanwhile we will assume it has no benefits or purpose.

I haven’t had cigarette smoke enter my lungs for about 4 years now (not including my passive smoking habit I can’t seem to kick) and I’ve never felt better, so I write this as a man who knows the allure the paper and tobacco combination contains, but I also know the change you go through after you quit. That’s a change you can’t buy from a doctor or specialist, nor can you find it in any chemist or supermarket.

So I found it intriguing and comical that in tonight’s sub-zero (Ed: 10 degrees celsius) temperatures my Uncle and his partner were sitting in the lounge room, with the front and back sliding doors open, smoking away.

They keep the doors open as a measure of kindness to the 50% of the household that don’t smoke, which I and Rachel appreciate and am thankful for. But I still find it hilarious that they would force the household into the cold, for one simple reason … the humble cigarette.

I can just see the headlines in the Bulletin: Smoking family dies of amnesia.

The next day in the Gold Coast Bulletin: Stop cigarettes now! Haven’t enough people died because of amnesia?

The insanity ensues.