Introducing the Anda, a brand new type of Segway that promises to keep you in shape while getting you where you need to go. The Segway company, developers of the original Segway, have just released the Anda in response to the "fat and lazy concerns" from Segway users. Users complain about discomfort and lack of circulation resulting from the rigid stillness required to drive a traditional Segway. But the days of standing still are almost gone! The Anda is a two-wheeled transport featuring an open frame and gyro-based moving belt. Unlike traditional Segways, which do not allow for any type of user motion, the Anda requires the user to move around while traveling. As the user pushes the belt in a walking motion, the Anda moves forward. If the user moves faster, the Anda picks up speed as well. To turn, the user simply leans to that side and continues walking. The Anda will be right underfoot. Even with wheels turning one way and the belt the other, thanks to Segway-patented gyro technology, the Anda never tips over.
The Anda MSRPs for $5500, and boasts a top speed 5.2 mph! Segway is expected to release the Marathon, a jogging model with a top speed of 12 mph, next year.
Voted Top American Invention, 2009 Check it out here.
Source: Baloney Network - "All the news that isn't true."
Think it's a crazy idea? Think again -- Check out the Centaur -- http://news.cnet.com/Photo-Segway-Centaur/2009-1026_3-5408282.html
And this one -- http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/24/the-treadmill-bike/ (love the sentence under the picture) http://www.bikeforest.com/tread/index.php
Sometimes when a person rejects the Christian faith, it is pretty obvious that they are no longer following the Lord. One may do what they know is wrong, as a rebellious act of clear defiance. But most often, we find ourselves concerned about someone because we just don't know where they are. They haven't clearly stepped over a line, but neither do they seem to be doing well spiritually. Sometimes, the person doesn't even know themselves. Often, people in this state will call themselves Christians, even after they seem to have long since abandoned God. How does this happen? Can it happen to us? Would we notice if it did?
There is a large piece of ground between heaven and hell. "Grey Area" is a dry and trackless wasteland, without signposts, landmarks, or boundary lines. It is very difficult to know where you are and whose side you are on. It is not like walking off a cliff and falling into sin (like most people fear, and like our first case, above). It is like wandering without any sense of direction. You can walk right into sin, and not even know it. By the time you recognize a landmark, you may find that you are a hundred miles inside the enemy camp. By choosing to live in Grey Area, you are choosing to live without the knowledge of right and wrong. It may seem like freedom, but you've sacrificed knowledge. We often like to think that God doesn't know where the line is either, so it's safe to be out there. But if we don't know where we are until we finally see a landmark, whose landmark do you think we will see? It's the temptation that Christian faced in "Pilgrim's Progress" when he saw a green path that ran "parallel" to the road. He didn't know the path soon disappeared and left him without direction. Grey Area doesn't make you right, it makes you lost. Many of us want to live in Grey Area, for we do not like the idea that God will judge us for our actions. We feel we are safe out there, because we cannot fall into sin. There are no cliffs; there is no danger. We are outside the clear voice of God, and outside the reach of Satan. It's a safe middle-of-the-road. But friends, if we are outside the voice of God, how will we hear when He calls His children home?
Do you know for sure that how you are living is right?
“Grant me, O Lord, the grace to know what should be known, to praise what is most pleasing to You, to esteem that which appears most precious to You, and to abhor what is unclean in Your sight.” -- Thomas a Kempis (Imitation of Christ, p. 236)
"Let a man but have so much piety as to intend to please God in all the actions of his life, as the happiest and best thing in the world." -- William Law (A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, Chapter 2)
Important Note: *There is a difference between observing others in a "grey area," and choosing to be there personally. I strongly encourage you to personally stay out of grey areas. Choose to live the way you know for sure is right. If you don't know for sure, stay clear away from it! On the other hand, I encourage you to have grace with others you observe. Just because you don't know if they are right doesn't mean they don't know. Don't announce that they are going to hell. We are to hold each other accountable and spur one another on in the faith. Ask if they know for sure what they are doing is right. Point them to God's Word as the boundaries and signposts for our lives. Exhort them to a life that abandons grey area in favor of right living. All of us, in any spiritual state, need to hear that exhortation.
Trashy ads bothering you? Here's a simple way to help protect your space. You don't have to live with the ads on Facebook (or the rest of the internet)!
You can get rid of them if you are using Firefox as your web browser with the adblock plus plugin!
If you do not have Firefox, start here: 1. Download and install Firefox go to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html click the download button to download firefox 2. Install firefox 3. After installing, run firefox
If you are already using Firefox, start here: 4. In firefox go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865 this is called Adblock Plus 5. Click "Add to Firefox" It will install (may require a few more clicks) 6. Restart firefox 7. When firefox restarts, it will show a subscription page. Select "Easy List (USA)". 8. Bam, your ads are gone!
A few notes: --You should now have an adblock icon in your top-right corner (looks like a stop sign). --Some legitimate web images may accidentally be blocked by adblocker (for example, it sometimes blocks the main picture on the kmbc homepage. You can disable adblock to check or select "disable for __site__". (both of these are found at the stop sign.)
I was sitting there on the 4th floor on the highrise, placidly watching the suburban Chicago traffic. As an army of ants goes to and fro from an anthill, each minding his own business, yet working in perfect harmony, so these cars went about their circuit. As I watched the endless motion, so regular, yet so varied, I asked myself, "Where does order come from?"
I am not wholly opposed to assuming a belief entirely for a set time, in order to work from inside the belief system. So, please allow me to embrace evolution for a minute.
Cars, such as those in suburbia, and even ants, such as those in my yard, challenge my modern evolutionary thought. My understanding, based in modern theories of evolution, has great distaste for these cars operating in such harmony. This type of order presents some challenges for us. Where does order come from? In evolution, we rely on randonimity and chance. It is highly improbable that life, and ultimately man, evolved from mere non-living matter, yet it is possible. And it has happened.
Evolution is random. Given enough chances, the universe exploded into existence. Given enough time, life accidentally sprang into being. Given enough opportunities, beneficial mutations occurred, changed the organism, and created new creatures. By luck, it so happens that we humans are now here. But where did order come from?
If I truly am to embrace evolution, I must hold that it is the best system. If it is the best system, why is this system not operating around me every day? Why, our highways should go nowhere; our driving should be erratic. Our cars should take turns at random, and reach our destinations totally by accident! Our airspace should be hopeful, our seas should be unmapped, our lands should have no signage -- We're creatures of chance! Who needs NASA? Our spacecraft will make it eventually -- just give it enough time! Is order really necessary?
I cannot believe that order has always been necessary, for I do not believe it was necessary for the beginning of the universe and life. But if order is not necessary, then why does it exist? It should have been eliminated a long time ago by Natural Selection. If order is not necessary, where did it come from? If all was created by random processes, then order had to be created by random processes.
As an evolutionist, I hold that random processes can produce order, or at least, an order. If I toss Scrabble pieces onto a table, it is possible that a word (most likely a 2-letter word) will be produced. We would recognize that as order, or at least, as in order. Unfortunately, I must already operate from order to recognize that the scrabble pieces are in an order. So again I am foiled. If I was a pure randomist, I would not notice the difference between my random tossing producing gibberish on my Scrabble table or producing the entire works of Shakespeare. I must understand language, which is an order, to be able to tell the difference.
So while I could argue that randonimity can produce an order, I am forced to recognize that randonimity cannot produce an operating system of order. Thus, randonimity cannot produce order, and order did not exist before the beginning. Order should not exist. But it does.
Order then, must be necessary. If it is necessary, then where did it come from? If order is necessary, why do we say it wasn't present at the beginning of things!?
One might say that order is necessary for life today, and I think they would be correct. But then we have another problem. Just when did order become necessary?
I cannot believe that order has always been necessary, for I do not believe it was necessary for the beginning of the universe and life. Perhaps then, it became necessary at some later point? I cannot say where, however.
But now I am left with another dilemma. At what point did order supersede randonimity? Order is what I observe in the world today. Without it, I would probably have been staring, panic-stricken, at a horrible mess of car pile-ups. Order seems to be the dominant operator in the present world. When did it surpass random processes? Since it did, Natural Selection would teach me that randonimity is weak, and order is superior. But if order is superior, why was it not necessary in the beginning!?
In either case, I still don't know where it came from. I also do not know how. If randonimity is all that operated prior to order, then how did order come into being? I have already found that randonimity cannot produce order. Where did order come from?
If I continue to hold that randonimity was the cause of everything, then I cannot explain why I observe order. Order is necessary, distinct from random processes. If order is necessary, then why is randonimity? When order could explain it all, why do we insist that randonimity must explain it all?
I could propose that order and randonimity must both exist. But then, order is necessary. If order is necessary, why do we insist that it wasn't necessary in the very beginnings of our universe and life?
Wouldn't a theory that includes both order and randonimity make more sense? Perhaps we should develop a theory in which order is dominant, and randonimity is variety. Maybe random processes have nothing to do with it. Maybe order created the cosmos, and randonimity mixes it.
Question: Is it better for a child to be in a bad home with 2 parents, or to be in an acceptable situation with just one? (for the sake of discussion, the "bad home" is not violent/abusive, but not a good situation either).
