Jacob’s Blog

I am the webmaster of LDSsearch.com. One of the things I do with this is to help promote links to search results on LDSsearch.com. I thought I should share a quick list here of some of the important searches that can be performed with the search engine.

• mormon missionaries are those who share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people all over the world
• mormon temples are places to for member of the Church to learn more about the Plan of Salvation
• Joseph Smith Jr. restored the true Gospel of Jesus Christ in these days
• The mormon temple can be a generalized form for temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• The mormon church is a popular name for the Church
• mormonism is a term used to describe the belief system of Mormons
• Mormon was a prophet of God who lived in ancient America.
• mormons is a generic term for members of
  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Latter-day Saint is another phrase for a member of the Church
• mormons beliefs
• The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ
• mormon history is very interesting.
• I once was a mormon missionary in Romania, where I served in Bacau, Bucuresti, Cluj-Napoca, and Sibiu.
• Gordon B Hinckley is the current President and Prophet of the Church.
• One can always ask, “What do mormons believe?” and clicking on this link will help them find out.
• Another question that can be asked is, “Are mormons christian?”
  The answer is yes.
• Mormon pioneers crossed the American plains to settle Utah.
• Christianity vs. Mormonism isn’t as interesting as a good football rivalry, in my opinion, neither is is a war of great debate. However, it is nice to occasionally compare Mormon doctrine with the doctine of other mainstream Christian religions.
• Like I mentioned before, I served a mormon mission in Romania for two years. It really was a great experience.
• Family and families are the most basic unit in the Church.

That is the end of the list. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. If any of these topics interested you, or you think you can write more interesting comments on these topics, I encourage you to write about them on your own website, also including a few links like I’ve done here.

Last Saturday I went down to Manti, Utah to see the Mormon Miracle Pageant. I thought it was pretty fabulous, especially underneath the starry sky. Having the Manti Temple as the backdrop was also pretty cool.

The pageant tells three different stories. It shows the young Joseph Smith seeking to find God’s true church. It also shows stories from the Book of Mormon, and talks about the sacrifices the Mormon pioneers made to move across the American plains.

I think my favorite parts were the different Book of Mormon stories, especially the parts before and including the visit of Jesus Christ to the American continent.

I know my vocabulary isn’t very large, but I came across a new word today that I don’t think I’ve ever read: sez.

The word comes from a title of a New York Daily News article, “Terror suspect was good kid, sez dad.”

Can someone explain to me what this word means and why Google didn’t provide me a nice little link to its definition? Thanks.

I was looking at the BYU homepage today, and I saw a feature with this title: A quiet place to study. Nothing wrong with that, until you look at the picture.

Clearly the image shows a couple of students conversing about information on the shown laptop. I’m doubtfull that they are simply just quietly sharing the laptop. They are obviously talking about it, which isn’t quiet at all. You can see in the background the backs of other students who are probably trying very hard to concentrate on their studies, but they are annoyed by the two guys around the laptop who don’t quite realize what quiet means. Even whispers in the library can be heard by others at nearby tables. I know; I’ve heard them.

Of course, I understand the need sometimes to talk briefly to someone, and in that case a soft voice is appropriate. But conversations are not brief. So let me please ask everyone, if you are going to converse with others in the library, take it to a study room, the stairs, or one of the “No Shhh Zones.” By keeping the noise level down in studying locations in the library, you will help your fellow students to study.

Blackmailing someone is not as easy as it seems on TV. Of course, a lie can be fabricated and used for blackmail, but this form of blackmail isn’t as classy as threatening to reveal something true about a person.

The first step in blackmailing someone is to discover some incredible secret about them that they wouldn’t want revealed. This can be problematic if trying to blackmail someone who lives an open, honest, and simple life (unlike a politician). Finding something an open and honest person would be ashamed of can prove to be difficult.

In blackmail, releasing the embarrassing information to the public can also be a problem, unless done anonymously. See, in releasing the information, the blackmailer provides clues about how the information was obtained which can potentially be embarrassing to the blackmailer to have people find out their sneaky information obtaining efforts.

I like watching the Sci-Fi show, Stargate SG-1. In this series, there is a group of Jaffa who are fighting to free their enslaved people from a race of false-gods and conquerors.

According to a Google Blog post about the debate over net neutrality the big phone and cable TV companies want to modify the Internet and enslave Internet users by controlling who can access what content. If this were to happen, the Internet would no longer be a free place where innovation can flourish and social statuses are non-existent.

Please take a look at Google’s blog post to see more and what you can do about this issue.

Tuesday I went up to Salt Lake City for some adventures and fun. I visited one of my favorite places, the Salt Lake City Library. I got a nice tour of the Beehive House which was Brigham Young’s house when he was governor of the region. I also got a tour of the Conference Center, where I saw the originals to some of my favorite Book of Mormon artwork. I also hiked Ensign Peak just about the time the sun was setting. Overall, it was a good adventure with some good company.

I recently broke the 300 post mark on this blog. Either I enjoy typing, or I don’t have a life. I’ve been writing more and more about religious topics here, which I guess makes this one of many mormon blogs. I’ve had some good posts. About 50 posts ago, I wrote about how one can go about finding self. About 100 posts ago I shared a graph which charts how many characters I write in posts in each hour of the day. And about 200 posts ago I shared an analogy about DTRs.

Bottled in Orem Utah, Howie’s Premium Root Beer is some of the best root beer that you can drink from a 2 liter bottle. Root beer is one of my favorite beverages, and I’ve tried many brands, so don’t take it lightly when I saw that Howie’s Root Beer is great. It is smooth, creamy, with the frosted mug type of taste. It is especially great with icecream to make root beer floats.

Today I thought I should get out and get some exercise, so I decided to hike the Y. I wanted to see how fast I could hike it, reasonably. I did the whole thing, up and down, in about 50 minutes, just before sunset. It was warm, but there were some clouds that kept things from getting hot. It was quite pleasant actually. I think if I work on it, I should be able to shave about 10 minutes off of that time without having to run it, just hiking a little faster.

I thought I was in really bad shape, but this hike let me see that I’m not as bad as I thought. A few more hikes and a good pair of shoes, and I should be able to do something that might merit the word, climb.

I’ve been continuing to work on LDSsearch.com, a search engine for positively biased LDS oriented websites. I’ve found that you can find information on a wide variety of information. If you are looking for activities for your family, hurricane preparation tips, or even dating advice, LDSsearch.com might have some good links for you.

Recently there has been new legislation introduced in congress what would ban minors from accessing social networking sites. The bill, known as the Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006 was introduced by Michael G. Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

The bill uses broad language to define a social networking site as one that: “allows users to create web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users; and offers a mechanism for communication with other users, such as a forum, chat room, email, or instant messenger.”

This language is so broad, that many websites would fit into their definition, possibly even this blog. Blogger, slashdot, even Gmail might all be banned under this description.

What this bill does is effectively limit minor’s abilities to speak freely on the Internet.

While I’m against predators from using the Internet to find minors, I don’t think banning minors from using certain Internet technologies is the right way to solve the problem. The bill encroaches on parental responsibilities to encourage their teens to be safe online.

Sure it may be unsafe to post personal information online, just as it may be unsafe to cross the street–you may be hit by a car! Does that mean we need a law that bans minors from crossing the street?