April Fools in Feb

I was wondering how long it was going to take before The Atheist Spot received anti-atheist comments and/or story submissions. Check out the comments under this story:

ATHEIST DAY: April 1st. (April Fool's Day)

THOSE WHOM GOD CALLS FOOLS

The fool says in his heart,

"There is no God." (Psalm 14:1).

For the message of the cross is foolishness

to those who are perishing,....(1 Cor. 1:18).

You fools, when will you become wise?

(Psalm 94:8).

It's the first time I heard an "Atheist Day" and April Fools associated with one another. This would have had much more impact on April 1st. It was a little premature, but at least I know to look out for this stuff on April Fools.

Spam, spam, spam

When you think you have a handle on spam, spam just finds another way in. We received a lot of spam over the few days. Some we caught before hand, and some made it through:(. Although they were different usernames, they were all from the same spammer. We deleted the ones that made it to the newest page.

We try our best to prevent spam from showing up on The Atheist Spot, but it is almost inevitable that it will appear. Perhaps if I pray, it will go away;).

A new tool to help atheist cause - GODbar

GODbar is a Firefox extension that helps you stay connected to the major atheist communities around the web. Some of the most useful functionality includes:

1. The ability to perform a Google search limited to the online atheist communities. Useful if you want to quickly see what online atheists are saying about a specific topic.
2. A global chat room for all GODbar users to connect online quickly and easily.
3. Quick access to the most popular atheist communities online, national and international organizations, and other web sites of interest to atheists.
4. Direct access to the current top stories at a certain atheist web site.
5. Weather and email functionality.
6. A podcast player automatically set up to connect to the most popular atheist podcasts.
   

This tool has some potential to be really useful, especially in connecting atheists around the world in real time. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

Vexatious Spam

We have been receiving and unusual amount of spam as of late. We try our best to keep a leg up on the spam, but may fall through the cracks. Thanks to Boreas for point them out.

Jon

Let Go and Let God

I just needed to make a correction to this bumper sticker I saw on my street.

Let Go of God.

Notice the difference? Hope not. We've moved to a new hosting provider!

I hate blogs that talk about the blogging for it's own sake. Or those constantly discussing irrelevant issues like what platform they use and what hosting provider they recommend. Except for the few great ones that do it so well, I couldn't care less how you do your blogging.

However...I feel that being transparent about what's going on with our site is a key component to our success. So at the risk of boring you, I just wanted to make it public that today we switched hosting The Atheist Spot away from linode.com and moved it to NearlyFreeSpeech.Net.

I wish I had a sordid tale to tell to explain the move, but the reality is the linode.com has been nothing but rock solid for us, and I would switch back at a moments notice. I highly recommend them.

The main reason for the move is to take the advice of some in the social media world and bunker down for the tough times ahead. With the new host, we pay only for what we need, and can scale as traffic builds. It doesn't hurt that our new host has a page quoting the Bill of Rights:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and
to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

In the weeks ahead, as we burn in the new host, if you notice any slowdown, downtime, or any funky stuff going on, let us know. A new hosting provider is like a marriage. You never know what you're getting into until after you've made the commitment.

More sights from the Atheist Alliance International 2008 convention aboard the Queen Mary

The Atheist Spot at Unsinkable Atheist aboard the Queen Mary


Jon and I (Lenny) at our super awesome table.

Michael Shermer!

Lori Lippman Brown!


PZ Meyers!

Bonus: Michael Shermer studying up