hughbiquitous

Use the new Windows Live Writer. Now at Beta 2!

Take Some Tips From A Pro. Robert Scoble reads 622 feeds every day. Be amazed.

Be Realistic. You will not read everything. Not everything is worth reading. Learn to veto quickly.

Use Google Reader. One nice thing about Google Reader (among many) is you never have to take your hands off the keyboard:

• j/k: next/previous item
• space/<Shift> + space: next/previous item or page
• n/p: scan down/up (list only)
• o/enter: expand/collapse (list only)
• s: star item
• <Shift> + s: share item
• v: view original
• t: tag item
• m: mark item as read
• r: refresh
• u: toggle full screen mode
• <Shift> + a: mark all as read
• 1: switch to expanded view
• 2: switch to list view
• <Shift> + n/p: next/previous subscription
• <Shift> + x: expand folder
• <Shift> + o: open subscription or folder
• g then h: go home
• g then a: go to all items
• g then s: go to starred items
• g then t: open tag selector
• g then u: open subscription selector

A new blog gets the Hughbiquitous Seal of Quality: Kim Riddlebarger’s Riddleblog. It’s a tasty blend of sardonic wit and insightful theology. Consider a couple recent posts:

Is Your Church’s Liability Insurance Current?: “Make sure that your church has paid its liability insurance in full, because if someone cracks their noggin when you slay them in the Spirit, they just might sue you!” Complete with cautionary tale.

The Reality of Romanism: Kim deals with Francis Beckwith’s defection to the Roman Catholic church.

You may recognize Dr. Riddlebarger as one of the hosts of the White Horse Inn, and it turns out that he was also one of Greg Koukl’s professors during his undergraduate work at Simon Greenleaf University.

Elsewhere, Dr. Riddlebarger delivered a series of lectures on the thought, ministry, philosophy, and apologetics of Francis Schaeffer that anybody interested those things ought to listen to.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6

From the sawing-off-the-limb-you’re-sitting-on dept.:

1. Having a lot to say is not necessarily commendable.

I’ve had this thought lately that my “words read:words written” ratio needs to go up. Way up. The same goes for my ratio of “thoughts carefully considered” to “thoughts spoken.” Scripture seems to agree:

• “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.” (Proverbs 10:19)
• “To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words.” (Ecclesiastes 5:1b-3)

Some less-authoritative sources concur as well:

• “Talk low, talk slow, and don’t talk too much.” —John Wayne
• “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” —Abraham Lincoln
• “One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.” —Will Durant

So blogging responsibly would seem to require a lot of time on the “taking in and processing” side as compared with the “issuing forth pearls of wisdom” side. When I consider that I’m already giving numerous priorities the short shrift, how in the world can I hope to blog responsibly?

2. A blogger must have a great answer to a charge of narcissism.

S. M. Hutchens (emphasis mine):

…we express ourselves without first thinking clearly and carefully—and with brutal self-criticism–about what we are going to say and how we are going to say it. We have the impression that our minds are pregnant with valuable thoughts that really must be heard…

Do I really have anything to offer that’s worth saying? Or am I just full of myself?

3. Can anything good come from the Internet?

Of course it can. But consider a case in point. I picked up this story tonight about missionaries in Turkey who were martyred for Christ. I spent two hours writing a careful post about the glory of God reflected in their deaths. I clicked “Publish.” Then I found out much of the story was exaggerated, and I yanked my post (thankfully before Google Reader and Bloglines picked it up). The fact that my original information was largely exaggerated doesn’t change anything of what I wanted to say, but by then it was after midnight and I just left it for another time.

It’s not worth getting upset over one Snopes-type episode, but it does reinforce the point that where the web is concerned, signal-to-noise is rarely very good.

Am I just adding to the noise? I can’t help but think that 99% of the blogosphere is one big ontological catastrophe, and I fear the verdict as to my contribution…

(See also The Unbearable Lightness of Blogs.)

Scanning the blogs today? Well, Mr. Blog-Surfer, Mark Dever and C.S. Lewis have something to say about our reading habits that you should mark well.

(I must warn you that what I have written here may keep you from coming back to hughbiquitous.com, or any other blog you frequent, for some time.) (more…)