In Book XI of “Confessions”, Augustine questions the nature of time and expresses the possibilities of its nature by providing examples regarding the three types of time, past, present and future. This paper will present that Augustine’s conclusion on the nature of time not only succeeds but is consistent with both the occurrence in nature and the Biblical aspect of God. In the first paragraph, the reasons behind Augustine’s inquiry of nature of time will be explained along with the reasons behind his statement of timeless God. Second paragraph will convey why time does not have real existence in the sense of past, present, and future aspects while the third paragraph will explain that time can have existence by existing in the present and by experiencing memories (past) and predictions (future). Third paragraph will explain why extension of the soul accounts for ability to measure time, followed by the fourth paragraph, summarizing Augustine’s arguments. Beginning from the fifth paragraph, I will critically engage Augustine’s argument by providing possible objections by the critics and defending Augustine by providing my own examples and reasons. From the seventh paragraph and beyond, I will conclude by providing a model to further support Augustine’s statements and show how they are consistent with most views. Summary will be presented in the last paragraph.

According to Augustine, God creates the heavenly and earthly bodies with time t and not in time, that there cannot be time before that time t. Since there is no time before time t, Augustine argues in defense against the critics that one cannot ask what God was doing “then” “before” all the creations because then and before both refer to having a time before the creation (Book XI: 10,11). Augustine also advises to take creationism in Genesis spiritually instead of taking it literally in a sense that God did not create things like a craftsman would have because there are no being or intermediate ingredients or substances to be used in creation of the universe and the world (Book XI: 5). From this and since God of Eternity is the Beginning and the End in Himself where there is none before and after, Augustine concludes that creation of time by a timeless God should then be a timeless act. However, Augustine does not understand why God creates the world, which is still in time and is changing in time and why he or others think they know what time is but fail to answer its nature. These lead to his inquiry of the nature of time itself. Read the rest of this entry »

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In the last few years the blogging craze has taken over the internet and has become a worldwide phenomenon. Some people are using blogs to post events taking place in their everyday life while others are earning a living from it. For people who are thinking about starting a blog; choosing between blogging websites and buying their own domain can be a confusing question indeed. Some people may be impressed by the popularity of blogging sites and come to the decision that they are a good place to start, while other may prefer the independence of having a personal domain name.

Here are some pros and cons of both blogging platforms and hosted blogs.

Blogging Platforms

Pros:

Most popular hosted platforms like Wordpress and Blogger are free of cost. You can setup a blog in no time since everything is already done for you. Hosted blogs are easier to maintain and posting content on them is a simple process. You don’t have to worry about updates as they are done automatically. Another advantage is that you get ranked easily because your blog is on a domain that ranks well already.

Cons:

If you like to customize your blog then you may get frustrated with hosted platform. Of course, Read the rest of this entry »

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AdSense is the most popular service going around but there are some people who prefer other services like Adbrite and Clicksor. In order to find out which is the best out of these three we have to take a look at some of their features and flaws.

Adbrite

AdBrite sells ad space on websites. It allows you to set your own ad rates, and approve or reject every ad that’s purchased for your site. AdBrite enables you to sell ads directly to your visitor and also through the sales team and marketplace.

You get 75% of the sale. 50% of AdBrite’s sales are generated from marketplace and sales team, while the other half are generated from users clicking “Your Ad Here” on their publisher’s sites.

AdBrite’s ads take a day or two to show up. Their network is not as large as Adsense so it takes a few months to build a client list and you will have to wait to see the same return you may get from Adsense right away. There is a 60 day payment rule.

Clicksor

With Clicksor you can get up to 60% of the advertising clicks revenues generated from your website. It allows you to check your progress through online real time stats. You will get paid according to their fortnightly payment schedule. $50.00 is the payment threshold and payments are made either by check or PayPal. Anything under $50 will be rolled into the next period. You can also earn additional money by underlining a selection of clickable text or putting targeted contextual banner on their websites.

Some people complain that their ads load very slowly. This may be because Clicksor does not generate code in an iframe; you have to load it directly on your page. The benefits on promoting their affiliate program seem to be important than actual PPC products. Although some CLICKSOR users are not sure if affiliates of Clicksor can also use Google due to Google’s TOS violation issue, others claim to have both programs running at the same time.

AdSense

With AdSense you can setup your ads easily and they show up within few hours. The management system and support is very good. Payments are made within 30 days. There is a high payout levels on websites that are text based and content oriented. The click rates are also high.

AdSense has strict acceptance policies and people get ban occasionally for random reasons, some are understandable, some are not. The payout is low on sites that are image based. There is also a limit on the number of ads that you can have on a page.

Considering the features and flaws of the three advertising platforms it can be concluded that the best platform for you really depends on the type of website you have. For instance, content based websites may make more money with Adsense advertisements and Adbrite may be a better choice if you have an image based website.

- Kaung | KMKBlog.com

I am not really into favoring an artist over the other since I respect their talents. But the buzz going on regarding Beyonce’s being better than Taylor Swift can’t really be true. It’s no doubt Beyonce has the better experience in the music industry because she’s been in it way longer than Taylor Swift. And I really do hope she will still win without having her experiences/talents go wasted.

Alright, now see the active duration along with numbers of awards winning and nominated for.

Beyonce Knowles:
Source

1990-Present
Won 97
Nominated 232
Percentage: 97/232 = 42%

That’s 42% in 20 years period of experience.
Quick bad calculation gives an average of 2.1% per year.

Taylor Swift:
Source

2006-Present
Won 50
Nominated 63
Percentage: 50/63

That’s 79% in 4 years period of experience.
Quick bad calculation gives an average of 19.75% per year.

You may also argue and wish to look from numbers of awards nominated only perspective.

Beyonce: 232 nominated in 20 years (11.6 nominations per year)
Taylor Swift: 63 in 4 years (15.76 nominations per year)

Understandably you may also wish to defend from the quality of awards viewpoint.

Keep in mind that that isn’t possible yet due to one being a starter, the other being an aging one in the music industry resulting in mismatch numbers of albums, singles, videos and downloads sold.

Now you want to also compare them according to your definition of talent?

No problem. But there’s a slide problem, you can’t really compared “shaking” and “guitar playing” or songs based on different backgrounds. I’ll let the commenters/readers decide!

So is Beyonce really better than Taylor Swift? Beyonce no doubt has many experiences and thus more talented but with the awards nominated and actual winning ratios compared to the duration in the industry, is she really?

Wondered by:
Kaung | KMKBlog

I am hearing this Twitter buzz going on about getting more followers and the ways you can get them.

If you don’t know Twitter, it is sort of like a truncated but still fun social networking site where users submit “statuses” of what’s going on with them in less than 140 characters. Many celebrities are using Twitter as well, the real verified ones. On Twitter, you can follow somebody if you like their updates and wish to keep in touch with that someone’s updates. Unlike with other social networks, if you follow (add) someone on Twitter, it doesn’t mutually have the other add you back so you have “following” and “followers” separate. People become very addicted and crazy about getting more followers to make them look like somewhat popular or to attract ad services.

I’m not here to promote about Twitter in general, so let’s get to the chase (don’t worry, this is not a promotion speech); back to Twitter followers. There are many ways to get Twitter followers; buying through eBay or websites, joining what are called Twitter trains, and task offering services as with Clickthru. I tried all of them to see if they are real and the quality of results for testing purposes. I used both a test account and my main Twitter account where they both have real profile feels since I didn’t want the test account, random profile picture, or any test account feels to interfere with the results.

eBay/websites: There are many providers on there selling X followers in X days. I bought a test package from each seller for my test account (didn’t use my main account here because they require me to send them username and password and can’t change any until the service is done). Such services usually follow people for you using a software, follow and unfollow those who doesn’t follow you back, send messages through your account and some send even spam. I’ve been promised 1000 followers in 7 days or so; with very few vendors I did get about 800 but with most, either way less and took very long time. If you do quality tweets that fall into the keyword the mutual followers are interested in, they’ll Read the rest of this entry »