Weekend Links 4-13-18

It's been a really full week of fun stuff on the internet. Here are the stories that caught my eye.

I'm generally not a fan of colorized photos but I have to admit these colorized photos of old baseball players are amazing.

Minor league baseball teams always have to be creative with their promotions. Case in point: the Richmond Flying Squirrels will have an Edgar Allan Poe Bobblestache night (Poe lived in Richmond).

Speaking of the minor leagues, here is a terrific profile of the brief, colorful history of the Saratoga Phillies, where baseball was played for the fun of it.

Disneyland has updated its monorails with some pretty cool Pixar themed artwork.

Many young girls dream of being a princess. The next best thing is to attend a royal wedding.

This 12-year-old Manchester attack survivor has landed an invite to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding - and she couldn't be happier about it ❤️ pic.twitter.com/pbRiFcU5yB

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) April 11, 2018

The idea of being a location scout always seemed interesting to me but once you know their secrets it's not as glamorous a job as you might think.

Strange but true: how a typographical error might have helped end World War II.

Matt Walsh has some interesting observations about how our culture destroys boys.

No doubt this was a shock among Purdue fans: head football coach Tony Levine has stepped down to run a Chick-fil-A in Houston. But read the whole article to discover why he made this unusual career move.

Tweet of the week:

“I acted for what I deemed the best.”
“Another time try acting for the worst. Then we may possibly escape with a mere flesh wound.”
-Right Ho, Jeeves

— DailyPlum (@DailyPlum) April 6, 2018

Daily Links 5-5-14

Good morning. Here are a few links to start off your week. In today's edition: failure and fostering success, things I wish I knew as a college student, the best time of day to do anything, and more.

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This is an interesting quote from Pixar Studios co-founder Ed Catmull on failure:

We need to think about failure differently. I’m not the first to say that failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth. But the way most people interpret this assertion is that mistakes are a necessary evil. Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new (and, as such, should be seen as valuable; without them, we’d have no originality). And yet, even as I say that embracing failure is an important part of learning, I also acknowledge that acknowledging this truth is not enough. That’s because failure is painful, and our feelings about this pain tend to screw up our understanding of its worth. To disentangle the good and the bad parts of failure, we have to recognize both the reality of the pain and the benefit of the resulting growth. 

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Interesting history: how the King James Bible came about.

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This is a fascinating list: 20 things I wish I knew as a college student. I am sure that if I had known at least a few of these things I would have gotten much more from the whole college experience. (Hat tip: Aaron Armstrong)

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Once again, science proves something useful: taking notes by hand is more effective than taking notes on a computer.

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More great reading: finding the opportunity in every obstacle.

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Some useful suggestions on the best time of day to do anything.

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This is cool: a few minutes of footage from the 1919 World Series.

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Quote of the week:

Daily Links 4-17-14

In today's edition: Reader's Digest Christianity, revisiting the great Dungeons and Dragons scare, confessions of a Christian film critic, the aggregation of marginal gains, and more.

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Exposing the flaws of Reader's Digest Christianity. Unfortunately this is what too many sermons have started to sound like.

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How do I talk to my teenage daughter? This is a struggle that every father of girls faces.

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The 4 Stages of Writing and 3 Common Mistakes We Make. I can relate to every bit of this article (particularly the mistakes).

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Recalling the great 1980s panic about Dungeons and Dragons. I recently shocked my kids when I confessed to them I had played the game (more than a few times) when I was younger. Somehow I managed to survive. (Hat tip: Challies)

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12 Places in Pixar movies that exist in real life. Some of these are less obvious than others.

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This is an interesting read: Confessions of a Christian Film Reviewer:

If it’s a challenge to write about Christian films as a Christian, it can be just as problematic to review nonreligious films, especially the bad ones: The humility and loving kindness I try so hard to cultivate in my daily life doesn’t hew to the snark and downright cruelty that can be the occupational hazard of the reviewer’s job. Where I’ve become much more unforgiving, however, is in depictions of violence. As a student of film history, I know that violence is a long-standing, even essential element of cinematic grammar and audience catharsis; as a Christian, I find it increasingly difficult to accept portrayals of brutality that are glib, meaningless, played for laughs or cynically nihilistic. As Underhill wrote, “We cannot begin the day by a real act of communion with the Author of peace and Lover of concord, and then go on to read a bloodthirsty newspaper at breakfast.” If a bellicose tabloid is enough to give peace-lovers a case of indigestion, they should try watching a Quentin Tarantino film on an empty stomach.

Hat tip: Breakpoint

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How to keep your marriage strong. These are great tips. #5 is the one I find the hardest.

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This is very interesting: the aggregation of marginal gains. Having the patience to make small changes will result in bigger changes.

Daily Links 4-3-14

Your daily dose of fun links from around the web. In today's edition: Pixar hidden goodies, baseball's new instant replay system, a class act, and more,

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The interconnectedness of everything: 30 Easter Eggs you will find in Pixar movies. Only goes to show what geniuses those folks are. (Hat tip: Wardrobe Door)

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Kids say the darnedest things especially in bookstores. Prepare to be heartwarmed. (Hat tip: Book Riot)

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Baseball's instant replay system was supposed help umpires get calls right. Except when it doesn't. My prediction is there are going to be a lot more stories about an overturned call being a deciding factor in a lot of games this season. That is not what Bud Selig wanted.

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When Platt wasn't enough. I really like this insight on why a church needs a flesh and blood pastor:

These days, Christians can slip into treating preaching like a consumer commodity and preachers like buffet selections. With the internet, a believer can choose a different style and a different preacher for every mood and preference. 

However, my church realized they needed a pastor. A flesh and blood pastor is crucial for the local church because preaching is an act of spiritual warfare. A pastor is a shepherd who fights in the trenches next to his sheep, defending them from the wolves. You can’t simply phone that in! Only an in-person preacher can bear the burdens of the congregation, weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice. That’s what we see clearly in Scripture. Preaching and teaching are normative functions of the shepherding pastor (1 Tim 3:2b, 5:17, 2 Tim 4:2, Titus 2:1).

That is to say,pastors care for the flock by preaching and teaching, rebuking those who contradict sound doctrine (Titus 1:9). Can a preacher disconnected from a local church—in fact, completely oblivious of it’s existence—defend that flock from false teaching? Can he fend off the wolves? Can he shepherd the flock, exercise oversight, or rule well? 

A church ought to receive preaching from a man who knows the church’s struggles, their strengths, their needs, their victories—in short, knows them. True biblical preaching not only rightly interprets the Word, but it also lands and applies uniquely and specifically in the people who are sitting under that Word.

Hat tip: Challies

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Follow the truth:

Given what is taking place in the world today, do we have any indications that to follow Christ will become more and more comfortable? The Bible Belt, long the cultural bastion of “biblical values,” has long been heading toward the spiritual ruins of post-Christendom. Cultural Christianity is wasting away. And the outside world is becoming more and more hostile to the things of faith. Even some professing Christians are becoming hostile to those who will not move according to the shifting winds of the culture. And if God is doing anything in ordaining these cultural shifts to come to pass, it may be this: We are finding out who the real Christians are. (Even today, some are announcing in anger and embarrassment that they will never again call themselves evangelical, to which we must respond with all sincerity and soberness, “Thank you.”)

Hat tip: Aaron Armstrong

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Class act: Ed Sheeran grants a dying teenage girl's request by serenading her during her last minutes of life.

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Searching for a mentor? Look no further than your bookshelf.

It has become apparent to me that many people, especially young Christians seeking maturity, desire for someone to come alongside them and mentor them. I myself have profited immensely from sitting underneath the godly influence of men of faith. I believe it is a noble and holy thing to seek out men and women of faith that may speak truth into your life. You can pursue these people through getting involved in community and service. As you meet seasoned saints, you can ask them to carve out time to meet with you. However, in a church context where we have significantly more young people desiring a “mentor” than we have people who have walked through a long life of faith in God, we must be aware that there will not always be men and women of this stature at our disposal. 

We hope that a mentor will share their life with us, speak truth, lead us to pray and worship, share with us a greater knowledge of Scripture and offer insight into living a godly life. I believe that a great book can do some of these things. Your shelves can be overflowing with mentors.

Daily Links 2-14-14

Here are a few links for your weekend reading enjoyment. In this edition: the great animation renaissance, some fascinating history about Abraham Lincoln, a Christian in Hollywood, and more.

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The greatest renaissance in Disney animation is due to a group of CalArts students who attended the school in the 1970s. This is their story.

It was a staggering number. In November 2012, the  Los Angeles Times reported that directors who had been students in the California Institute of the Arts’ animation programs had generated more than $26 billion at the box office since 1985, breathing new life into the art of animation. The list of their record-breaking and award-winning films—which include  The Brave Little Toaster, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Toy Story, Pocahontas, Cars, A Bug’s Life, The Incredibles, Corpse Bride, Ratatouille, Coraline—is remarkable. Even more remarkable was that so many of the animators not only went to the same school but were students together, in the now storied CalArts classes of the 1970s. Their journey begins, and ends, with the Walt Disney Studios. As director and writer Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) observes, “People think it was the businessmen, the suits, who turned Disney Animation around. But it was the new generation of animators, mostly from CalArts. They were the ones who saved Disney.”

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Seven challenges of activity-driven churches. There is definitely a downside to having too many things going on at church.

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Houses sure to please any book lover as they are built out of books.

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This is an interesting bit of history. Months before President Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed he was almost shot and killed. 

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Kevin DeYoung offers some guidance to sports writers with some interesting results.

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Is it possible to be an actor and remain a faithful Christian? Yes, but it's not easy.

Daily Links 1-24-14

Happy Friday! Here are few links to start off your weekend right: the story behind Pixar, Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, and more.

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This is a fascinating history of the Pixar Animation Studios. One of the interesting things is that the company didn't entirely start out as an animation studio. However, it's safe to say it's currently the best one in the business.

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If it seems like your Top 40 radio station is playing the same songs all the time it's because they are. What amazed me is the frequency with which they repeat songs. When I worked in Top 40 radio many years ago the rule was a song that was ranked in the Top 10 was repeated every 2 hours and 15 minutes. I'm sure that it's much more frequent now.

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The origin of Winnie-the-Pooh and writings by A. A. Milne on happiness. Believe it or not, the famous bear actually appeared in a book of poems a full two years before the first Pooh book was published.

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Glenn Harlan Reynolds discusses education and his new book with The Atlantic.

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Did you know that you can view the original manuscript for Alice In Wonderland (including illustrations from Lewis Carroll) online?

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How to make perfect bacon. I'm normally in too much of a hurry to try a procedure like this but it looks like it could be good. Lately, I've been using a bacon tray I found at Wal-Mart for around five bucks that allows me to cook it in the microwave. Plus it pulls the grease away from the bacon and allows me to reuse it for another application.

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Ever wonder why we put money in piggy banks? Here's your answer.

What's Your Favorite Pixar Movie?

Here's one author's take on which Pixar movies are the best. As the writer points out, their movies are so good it's hard to distinguish which one is best. I agree with the top pick but beyond that it's debatable.

Hat tip: Instapundit