of interest

Here are some interesting things I have come across lately.

In Defense of Eye Candy – A List Apart

A very good article about why it is important to focus time on the aesthetics of a website, instead of simply worrying about function. It argues well for the reality that function & form a integrally wedded together. One example: what’s wrong with a ! next to a  confirmation dialogue saying “successful”? It sends mixed messages. The brain sees red as bad, green as good. √ as good, X as bad, ! as attention.

Good stuff, check it out.

A Christian Nation? – Brian McLaren

Brian argues that we are not or ever were a Christian nation, using the informal fallacy of “tu quoque“.  You can’t dismiss the United States as not being a Christian nation on the grounds that they have committed and continue to commit injustices. If that could be the case then the people Israel would of lost status way before even Jesus came on the scene. And Paul does a good job in Romans proving that that is not the case.

That being said, I don’t necessarily disagree with you opinion, but with you way of getting there.

8 Ways to be Missional (without overloading your schedule) – CreationProject

Here are some good ways to begin practically living out one’s faith. I have been having a lot of conversations which seem to end with the question of, “so how does this actually happen?” I think the best summation would be to say, get out in the world and live amongst people. Then you are fulfilling what Christ proclaimed as the greatest commandment, love God/love People.

10 Exceptional WordPress Hacks

I haven’t tried any of these yet, but I definitely want to use a few of these. They seem really awesome. I really am excited to see a good explanation of grabbing a post’s image, dynamically re-sizing to thumbnail so you can place into on the frontpage—without having to do any custom-fields or manual insertions. Very clever stuff, a must wp users.