Whatever your political beliefs, or whatever conspiracy theories you might hold to, there is no question that thousands of regular people, here and around the world, have been devastated because a few handfuls of maniacs think the world is their playground.

Check out the song, take a minute to reflect; if you’re feeling generous, make a donation to a worthy cause. Let’s all think about how we can be better citizens of the planet.

benjamin-samuel.com

Mobile RSS Free

This is the best app I’ve found for bringing feeds I’ve subscribed to in Google Reader onto the iPhone. It’s slick, decently customizable, and a pleasure to read. I use the Stealth skin, and it makes reading as comfortable as it can be on a mobile device. Of course, if it floats your boat, for a few bucks you can jump to Pro, with a few more features, and of course no ads (though to be honest, I don’t even notice the ads in the free version).

Of course, you can Star, Like, Share and mark read items (all syncing with your Google Reader of course), but it also has a bunch of other great sharing options, which brings us to…

Read it Later

Sometimes when you’re skimming through a feed, you may not have time to read every story that piques your interest… so what do you do? Mark it as a favourite and hope to find it later? Open a tab that stays open in your browser for weeks? God forbid… bookmark it?

Enter Read it Later. Now, Instapaper has been the reigning champion in the “temporary bookmark” department, but Read it Later does it for me, in large part, because of the iPhone app!

As I said, Mobile RSS has a few sharing options, and Read it Later is one! See a story you want to dig into but don’t have time? In Mobile RSS, you can send it to your Read it Later account. Then, when you have time, jump into Read it Later, and go through your list. It can sync for offline reading, and can also “reflow” the text of a blog to be more screen friendly. When you’re satisfied, mark it as read, and it’s gone from the list (of course, if it was a story you knew you’d want to hang on to, you would have Starred it in Google Reader).

Both apps really making reading blogs on the iPhone a joy.

Sick company. Sick pedal. Can’t wait for mine!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Stupid me, I forgot to update my Feedburner info to take note of some of those changes. Everything’s kosher now – the Internet is safe once again.

Ok. So, let’s say you read a blog post, and you want to comment on that post on your own blog. So, you write your post and include a link back to the original post. When you publish the post, WordPress sends what’s called a pingback to the other blog, letting it know that you linked to it. This pingback shows up in the comments section so readers reading that article can click on to yours and read your response.

Enter Gravatars. These are avatars that follow you whereever you go online so if you comment on a blog and enter your information, it will automatically retrieve your Gravatar (if the blog has the feature enabled). Beside every comment you leave, your own custom icon is displayed.

Well, I discovered that when a blog sends a pingback to another blog that has Gravatars enabled, a generic placeholder shows up. No good! When my blog sends a pingback, I want my Gravatar to show up, just as if I had left a comment.

Well, if you own a WordPress blog, there’s a very simple way to make sure that your Gravatar appears when your blog sends a pingback. To make YOUR Gravatar appear on the blog you’re pinging, you need to do the following:

1. open xmlrpc.php

2. find the following code:

   $comment_post_ID = (int) $post_ID;
$comment_author = $title;
$this->escape($comment_author);
$comment_author_url = $pagelinkedfrom;
$comment_content = $context;
$this->escape($comment_content);
$comment_type = 'pingback';

3. under the line $comment_author = $title; insert:

   $comment_author_email = 'name@youremail.com';

   (obviously replace “name@youremail.com” with the eMail address you used to register your Gravatar)

4. Find the line:

   $commentdata = compact('comment_post_ID', 'comment_author', 'comment_author_url', 'comment_content', 'comment_type');
   and after 'comment_author' add:
   'comment_author_email'

   (note: don’t forget to separate with a comma and a space!)

5. upload and replace xmlrpc.php in the root of your blog directory

Gravatars work by referencing the registered eMail address and this additional code posts your eMail address along with the pingback, letting the blog know what account to access the Gravatar from. I have no idea how it all works and I’m surprised this solution works at all, but I’m not going to question a good thing!

Enjoy.

The sad realization is most people are not effectively trained to handle conflict. The tendency is to withdraw, ignore, resort to bile, or simply appeal to others to fight on their behalf. I am constantly amazed at how we allow insecurity to dismantle civility and camaraderie.

Stand up and be counted! Wrestle a while and come out stronger for the trial. Such are the actions of one who has in fact grown up — boys flee and cower and malign, but men do battle and this, with honour. Instead, most cast their vote toward misunderstanding as misunderstanding, I think, is a device people most often use to enable their weaknesses. I constantly note people glossing over important pieces of communication, missing critical details, and ignoring honest intentions, choosing rather to extract that which best sees their fragility preserved with no concessions made.

Confronting another, receiving a challenge, and staring wounding in the face, all take courage — where have all the men gone?

I don’t get it. It just seems like a bit of a rehash to me. What happened to the songs man? It used to be about the songs!

Horrific winters. Natives that are rightfully pissed that you’ve decided to stake claims. It’s amazing how far people will go, and how blind to obstacles they can become, when the opportunity to possess shows up.

So often when we trace every sin back, we find the root, the first sin, to be pride. But ownership, it seems, is a viable candidate (and I’m not speaking strictly of material ownership) or at least an interesting re-framing of the concept. It’s hard to know what is really antecedent: the desire to own (whether it be reputation or glory or self-approval) or the validation to pursue own (I’m great, so I will seek to own).

On this blog, two recent topics of discussion have been place (as in, finding yours), and side (as in, picking a political one). I think so many of the qualms, grievances, and tragedies that take place in either private or public life come down to matters of ownership and the struggle to obtain it.

The real animosity surfaces when we realize that in fact there are no Deeds to be had, and so the rest really becomes a matter of saving face or continuing on in struggle as the struggle is all you know. Or, perhaps in the realization striving increases, as one tries to assert that for them, things are different.

None of this is say that life is simply a matter of pursing ownership and realizing there is none to be had. Just consider; where there is struggle or failure or conflict, perhaps the impetus to own is working against you.

Where man is a tower, woman is a canyon, the limits of each identical to each other, save the distance of polarity. Where there is fit, there must too be contrast and opposition, thought not necessarily strife — there must be difference where there is found complement.

For what thrill is a plain when it is on heights and in depths the human finds their vigor?

When the two at last concede — to share the horizon — there is no seam to be found. They continue on toward their limits, and it is by a mystery done together. By this same mystery the fit will not, by the end, have been lost. Both will have fused into one continuity of form, where, as the man extends the woman deepens, and where the woman deepens, she allows the man to extend again.

It is in each other they see the distance, complement, and furtherance that only gender can effect.

Should we be passive and see the hills and valleys washed away for tundra? I treasure the uneven terrain; humanity finds its colour in the slopes.