A NY Times review of the film “28 Days Later” warns readers that:
”28 Days Later” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has many scenes of maiming, dismemberment, clubbing, shooting, bayoneting and shoplifting.
But what kind of parent would take their child to see scenes of explicit shoplifting? (link via Crooked Timber)
Nagid Ben Chesed is planning a series of essays on Job to follow his excellent series on Creation and Science. He comments that “Everybody knows the beginning and the end. Few understand the real drama that takes place in the long slow moving middle.”
I suspect the middle section of Job is one of the great unread regions of scripture, that few venture into except as part of a systematic Bible reading program. Wisdom is a treasure that we too often fail to seek.
“There is a mine for silver and a place where gold is refined.
Iron is taken from the earth, and copper is smelted from ore.
Man puts an end to the darkness; he searches the farthest recesses
for ore in the blackest darkness. Far from where people dwell he cuts a shaft,
in places forgotten by the foot of man; far from men he dangles and sways.
The earth, from which food comes, is transformed below as by fire;
sapphires come from its rocks, and its dust contains nuggets of gold.
No bird of prey knows that hidden path, no falcon’s eye has seen it.
Proud beasts do not set foot on it, and no lion prowls there.
Man’s hand assaults the flinty rock and lays bare the roots of the mountains.
He tunnels through the rock; his eyes see all its treasures.
He searches the sources of the rivers and brings hidden things to light.“But where can wisdom be found? Where does understanding dwell?
Man does not comprehend its worth; it cannot be found in the land of the living.
The deep says, ‘It is not in me’; the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’
It cannot be bought with the finest gold, nor can its price be weighed in silver.
It cannot be bought with the gold of Ophir, with precious onyx or sapphires.
Neither gold nor crystal can compare with it, nor can it be had for jewels of gold.
Coral and jasper are not worthy of mention; the price of wisdom is beyond rubies.
The topaz of Cush cannot compare with it; it cannot be bought with pure gold.“Where then does wisdom come from? Where does understanding dwell?
It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing, concealed even from the birds of the air.
Destruction and Death say, ‘Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.’
God understands the way to it and he alone knows where it dwells,
for he views the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens.
When he established the force of the wind and measured out the waters,
when he made a decree for the rain and a path for the thunderstorm,
then he looked at wisdom and appraised it; he confirmed it and tested it.
And he said to man, ‘The fear of the Lord-that is wisdom,
and to shun evil is understanding.’ “
Jakob Nielsen considers PDFs unfit for human consumption: “Users get lost inside PDF files, which are typically big, linear text blobs that are optimized for print and unpleasant to read and navigate online. PDF is good for printing, but that’s it. Don’t use it for online presentation.”
I agree 100%. Even worse than a reading a PDF online, is reading a PDF online with Acrobat Reader running embedded in the browser — why on earth does anyone think that’s a good idea?. And why is it so hard to turn that behaviour off? (You have to run Acrobat Reader from the Windows Start Menu, then select the menu Edit | Preferences | Options, then clear “Display PDF in Browser”). And even worse than PDFs are MS Office documents served as “web pages” — especially when links to them neglect to mention that they are Office documents, and you’re about to have MS Word fire up inside your browser to show several megabytes of badly formatted bloat.
In RSS, Echo, Wikis, and Personality Wars, Clay Shirky writes: “Though both weblogs and wikis support conversational patterns, weblogs are ‘conversation as published comments’ while wikis are ‘conversation as shared editing.’ Weblogs tend towards polarized or divergent views, while wikis tend towards convergent ones”
There has been a ripple of excitment recently over the discovery of a Jupiter-like planet orbiting a star, raising the possibility of other systems like our own Solar system.
“The discovery of planets orbiting other stars allows us to put our own Earth and solar system in a bigger context, a galactic context, for the first time.” … Until yesterday’s announcement, Earth, Mars and Venus seemed rare, or perhaps even unique. Now planets like them elsewhere in the galaxy are be ginning to seem probable.
To be alone as a species is as un-natural to us as to be alone as individuals:
I saw something meaningless under the sun:
There was a man all alone;
he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
“For whom am I toiling,” he asked,
“and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?”
This too is meaningless-
a miserable business!
Ecclesiastes 4:7-8
Having declared God to be dead, extra-terrestrial life is the only hope for salvation from an eternity of isolation. Yet that very cosmos, and our existence within it, speaks of the true object of our longing. In the words of David:
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
Psalm 19:1-4, Psalm 139:7-10
CSS Zen Garden is a demonstration of what CSS-based design can achieve
in the hands of a graphic artist. It consists of a single HTML page, with a selection of contributed CSS style sheets that totally
transform the look of the page. The results range from the bizarre to the beautiful.
Here’s a way to waste some time- an online version of 20 questions. It plays
a surprisingly good game, although when I thought of “a Bible”, after 17 questions
it suggested “a Barbie doll”!