Wonderosity

Well, I finally started my new podcast (taking over Bleeding Purple) Wonderosity last week and (besides a redirect to an amazing Wisconsin public radio show called “Electrons to Enlightenment” I had to force on peopl), have so far put out two shows. Of more relevance to this blog, I have also created a social networking site devoted to the show –I’m calling it the “Wonderosity People Portal” –a dorky, but descriptive enough, name.. Its hosted on Ning.com and I’ve really being having some fun pretending I understand PHP in order to tweak the site to my likings. Members are able to upload videos, pictures, profiles, add to forums, add to a cool TheQuesting.ning board I’ve created, add their favorite books and quotes, chat and more…I hope it helps people who, like myself, want to grow spiritually and live life to the fullest, but are turned off by both the typical ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ approaches. Check it out if/when you get the chance.

Cheers,
Leif

Tags: ning.com, php, wonderosity, wonderosity people, geekingoutloud

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In this second part of my interview with Jim Palmer we continue discussing the nagging question of “Why is there resistance within me to enter into what I know will be truly good and satisfying? Why do I so badly want to be a ‘Divine Somebody’ and to get my esteem by assoicating with ‘Somebodies’?”. We also talk about things like:

• Is Jim wanting to be a somebody by writing Divine Nobodies, or is something else going on?
• How connected are we with each other, with God…is Jim God? Are you? (:
• How can we come to a place of peace where we feel fulfilled and content?
• How central does Jim think Jesus and Christian faith is do the kind of spirituality he is promoting, to knowing God?

I hope you enjoy this one as well, and don’t forget to join the growing fun and community of sharing over at the Wonderosity People Portal!

Tags: Wonderosity, wonderosityshow, Jim Palmer, Divine Nobodies, Interview, Spirituality, God

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I’m not sure how legal or net-friendly it is to do this, but I’ve just got to direct some of you over to this incredible wisconsin public radio series on science and faith. It’s called “Electrons to Enlightenment” and its part of their “To the Best of Our Knowledge Series”. This first one has Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, Ken Wilber and more. Wow, now this is the kind of show I would like to one day be producing. I am going to link to their first show, and then hope you listen to the rest here. The 2nd part of the Jim Palmer interview should be available Monday, sorry but the holidays got in the way (: Also, I’ve redirected you bleeding purple feeders over to this site -so if you are now subscribed to both, make sure you delete you BP feed and keep this new one (see sidebar). See you at the People Portal!

Tags: NPR, richard dawkins, karen armstrong, electrons to enlightenment, wpr, faith and science

For our first show, after a brief introduction to Wonderosity, I interview Jim Palmer, author of “Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God, and the unlikely people who help you.” Jim is a man with a huge heart and some powerful, simple ideas for those who are wanting to deepen spiritually. In this first of a three part interview, we explore questions like:

• What ‘Divine Nobodies’ is basically about, and how Jim came to write it.
• Why are bare-ass honest books like this, books admitting personal faith-struggles as well as churchianity’s shortcomings, just now starting to come out and be devoured by the public?
• Where the heck is God? Is God “out there” or “in here” or what?
• Why do I (and I’m sure others) seem to be in a place where I seem to be resistant to growing spiritually, slowing down, etc?

I hope you enjoy this first episode and I’d love any feedback you have to give. Please email wonderosity@gmail.com with any comments or questions! -Leif

Tags: Wonderosity, wonderosityshow, podcast, jim palmer, divine nobodies, interview, spirituality, churchianity

If you are truly a geek, you have more than likely heard of Second Life. You’ve probably tried it out and either got bored with it (like moi), or have been hanging around trying to fill your aching social void with virutal relationships (ouch!) However, though you may have messed around some with SL, I am surprised to find out how few people have heard of, IMHO the much more enjoyable and cool virtual world, “There“. If you are TOTALLY CLUELESS as to what I am talking about, both of these apps are free massive virtual worlds that you can download the client for (click one of the above), explore, play, create new objects and meet people. Obviously, one doesn’t want this to take over one’s life (which it does for many people), but I do think its a fun way to meet new people from around the world and to play, create, and explore in a totally new way. So, go ahead and try one of them, and, if you do, let me know what you think. Oh, and make sure you try and find or IM “wonderosity” while you are there…if I’ve been on for more than an hour, tell me to go get a life!

Here are four simple reasons I like There better (pun intended) than SL.

1. By far the #1 reason is voice chatting. You can have real-time voice chat with multiple people. If they are to your left –well, guess what…its in your left speaker. If they run around your social group yelling “I need coffee” –yup, thats what you hear as well. Very cool and much deeper social interaction possible with this kind of communication. But even if you don’t choose to go the voice route, the text bubble-system is very cool as well. The only down side is that they float up in a big conversation rather quickly —but there is also the ‘chat history’. In fairness, this real-time voice chat only comes once you pay the small one-time fee of $10, but I really think its worth it…
2. Much smoother graphics…perhaps it was my settings; perhaps There has a little less rich graphics than SL, I’m not sure –but the ride was much smoother.
3. The very cool vehicles you can ride around in –hoverboards, jet-packs, space-ships, 4×4 jeeps, you name it. Each one rides differently –some fast, some slow; some solo, some with friends; some earth-born, some sky-worthy. Imagine cruising over a new virtual world in a hovercraft while talking in real time with some friends. Yeah, it is cool and it is addictive. I’ve spent more time this last week than I had planned on spending, and I usually get bored quick with this kind of thing.
4. There is PG13 and much more condusive to real converastion and fun, while SL tends to always drift towards XXX stuff and tasteless content like teens trying to update their avatar with a strap on dildo. Whatever.

My avatar’s first day ‘There’ (I did have to pay a couple of bucks for the clothes, so I wasn’t stuck with the Newbie Moonie standards.)

Anyway, just a quick and dirty review to get the word out to all my millions of blog subscribers. Maybe I’ll write some more later.

Oh yeah, and btw, I will be hosting a “Wonderosity Live” show using the TalkShoe client on Thursday at 2:00 –so if you can, come join the chat!

Tags: there, there.com, second life, 2nd life, virtual worlds, wonderosity, geekingoutloud, tech review, talkshoe

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Well, one good side to not getting sleep (at least when at someone’s house with net access) is that I had more geek hours than usual in the last 24 hours. From 3:30 in the morning till 8:30, I have (from lame to coolest):

1. Learned the basics of the cool, opensource CMS (Content Management System) Joomla and created a new wonderosity.com site –check it out. As of now it has a links to all of my related projects, a few cool plug-ins, and some basic content and news items.

2. Two weeks ago I was doing some ’social media’ consulting for a non-profit that wanted to create a private, rich-media, social-networking site –kind of closed myspace world. I found quite a number of social-networking sites that offered what they want, but only three that seemed to allow the private/closed loop. I suppose this makes sense as most people want a social-networking space to meet other people –but I think a huge niche market is being missed here: people who don’t want to be overwhelmed by new relationships, but who want to connect more deeply with their niche member-group. Anyway, I narrowed it down to three sites/services: People Aggregator, GoingOn, and Ning.Com. I choose ning.com. To be honest, I’m too lazy to recall exactly all the reasons why –but I know one of the main reasons was it seemed to have the best balance between high functionality and easy of use/prettiness.
   Well anyway, last night I also created the community hub / media-exchange site for my new and upcoming Wonderosity show -I called it “Wonderosity People Portal”. Kinda cheezy, but I love the word Portal and I think it gets the idea across. Check it out here, though you might need to ask me for an invite if I decide to have it a closed group. I described the site on the page as:
   This is the soon-to-be community hub for the Wonderosity show (formerly the Bleeding Purple Podcast.) The new show is currently being re-vamped, but if you are curious as to what it will be like, please check out The Bleeding Purple Podcast to get a general sense. Otherwise, please feel free to start discussions, add your favorite quotes to the Quote Voter, add your questions and answers to ‘The Questioning’, and upload pictures and videos. You can also leave a voice message from your computer using the below MyChingo app, or call in a public voicemail using the SupCast app below (phone #s below.) Of course, there is the ever-geeky web-chat for whoever is on the page as well! Almost all media streams have RSS feeds, so feel free to subscribe. Thanks for stopping by!

3. I am REALLY excited about this one. Have you heard about TalkShoe? It’s doing what SkypeCasts are trying to do, but you can also: record the shows, have people call in with regular phones or VOIP, have a instant-message included, color-coded timeline, and apparently get paid for doing your show as well! I have JUST found out about this and am testing it out –but as I am very much about learning through dialogue, you can guarantee I will be playing with, using and writing more about this later. Check it out and download the client ASAP –look, evenetually, for some kind of Wonderosity show to pop up there in the next week or so.

Well, it is getting to the limit I commited to going to bed –though I am finally really excited about some projects and I wish I could geek out all night long. This, of course, would not be conscious computing and my arse would get kicked by wife and life. This was a quick entry so I’ll probably have to fix some typos and links later…let me know what you think!

Tags: joomla, wonderosity, people aggregator, goingon, ning.com, ning, skypecast, talkshoe, wonderosity.com

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