For various reasons, I need to re-edit and in some cases perhaps remake the videos I posted on YouTube during the fall semester. As I get started on this project, I have a question for those of you who’ve seen the videos: do you prefer the more “natural,” less scripted videos like those on the Deuteronomistic History, or the more “formal,” tightly scripted videos like those on the Psalms?

At this time of the semester, I must evaluate quite a few student papers (208 of them, to be precise). I have grown weary and frustrated by getting hundreds of papers in .docx format with unnecessary, inappropriate, and just plain annoying extra white space in between paragraphs. And why have students suddenly started putting extra space between paragraphs? Because Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, set the defaults for the latest versions of Microsoft Word (on both PC and Macintosh) to put a 10-point white space after each paragraph. I have never in my life seen a style guide for college papers that called for 10 points of white space after each paragraph, but most students today either don’t bother to adjust the defaults, don’t realize that they should, or don’t know how. What on earth possessed Microsoft to stick in that 10-point white space in the first place?

Doug Chaplin, a.k.a. Clayboy, hosts the Biblical Studies Carnival for December with a roundup that manages to combine both breadth and depth. If you haven’t seen it already, check it out!

But then Doug raises pesky questions about whether the BSC should continue in the same vein, or transmogrify itself into something altogether different. I’ve seen responses from Tyler Williams and Loren Rosson; other bloggers have probably opined, but I haven’t read those posts yet. Why don’t you give those a read, too, and weigh in (if you have an opinion) on those posts or your own blog. I don’t really have a strong preference myself. But I don’t agree with Tyler that a theme post + comments can’t be called a “carnival,” as that is exactly the model followed by some other carnivals (the role-playing games carnival, for one).