Here’s one man’s summary of the arguments for and against gay marriage in flow chart form.
The moral to this story is that when Christians are dealing with political issues we need to keep a healthy balance of “love” with our “truth” – and we need to stop saying stupid stuff.
It’s mostly an American thing – but it’s an interesting way to present both sides of an argument.
Via here.
It’s a sad indictment on the state of our cultural morality that most techblogs I subscribe to are using the Tiger Woods infidelity story as an opportunity to help their readers not get caught cheating*. Because, you know, it’s so much harder these days with all the avenues of monitoring people. What if a photo gets put on Facebook? What if you forget to delete incriminating messages.
Here’s how to not get caught cheating in one easy step.
Step 1. Don’t cheat.
It’s that simple. It also works for not getting caught doing all sorts of wrong things. “Do not commit adultery” is one of the Ten Commandments for a reason. It’s not a nice thing to do. You probably shouldn’t. If by chance you’ve googled “how to not get caught cheating” and arrived here – think twice. If you’ve googled it, and arrived here, and you’ve already cheated, go to step 2.
The best way to avoid the surrounding furore, in the event that you fail in achieving step 1 is to take step 2…
Step 2. If you do cheat, confess.
That way the media/everyone you know doesn’t have a field day at your expense. And they don’t feel like they have to dig through your dirty laundry. Full disclosure is the best PR policy.
*I won’t link to the articles – they’re dumb and I don’t want to help anybody in this pursuit – unless you’re cheating at cards… I’m ok with that… unless it’s for money…
We all know that iPhones are the world’s most awesome piece of technology. They’re proof that God exists and wants good things for his creation. We don’t need the Large Hadron Collider. Shut it down now. Actually, wouldn’t the LHC be cool if it was controlled by iPhone. We had an Ergon person speak at a function recently and he told us they use an iPhone app to control and monitor substations in remote areas. How cool is that?
Anyway…
Here’s Gizmodo’s helpful iPhone usage flowchart.
Anna at Goannatree sat through a Lord of the Rings marathon yesterday. She blogged it.
Check out the series. It’s good.
I propose a Godfather marathon before we leave Townsville – anyone interested?
Here are the links and intro paragraphs as they appear in the final post.
Seeing Lord of the Rings in a new light
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The hearts of men are easily corrupted History became legend, and legend became mythOn this inimical Scottish day, with seven others, I have embarked on a Lord of the Rings maratho…more |
Lord of the Rings Marathon Post #2
For those who have asked – we are watching the British extended edition. Apparently the only difference to the US version are the Easter eggs (the UK version doesn’t contain the Jack Black parody f…more
Lord of the Rings Marathon Post #3: On Saruman v Voldemort
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So things are getting really interesting – 1.5 movies down! We are halfway through Two Towers. There have been walking trees and lots of ugly folk and the people (like Frodo and Gandalf) who die bu…more |
Lord of the Rings Marathon Post # 4: The Logic of Merry
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The closer I am to danger the further I am from harmThis is one of Merry’s aphorisms in Two Towers. It is a corker and it’s strange logic is worth teasing out. The harm of which Merry speaks cannot…more |
Lord of the Rings Marathon #5: The endurance of the battle and a little humour
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My marathon enduring abilities are somewhat less than they used to be but I am hanging in there – proud to say that I’ve seen all thus far.A friend informed me that he has not only done a LOTR mara…more |
Not content with the Flight of the Conchords style camera phone depicted in this shirt design, a cool engineering type has figured out how to fix an SLR lens to his iPhone. Awesome right?
Here’s the type of photo it produces…
The Phone-O-Scope produces fuzzy, Holga-like images. I think a lot of the image artifacts (strong chromatic aberration, bizarro lens distortion) are down to the extreme magnifier stack. However, I’ve tested it with a few Canon EF lenses now and it does seem to work reasonably well with every one. At the very least, it seems to work like a telescope for the iPhone, and it is fun to shoot with (not to mention the odd looks I get when I’m using it :)
Via lifehacker.
While we’re on the subject of talented people I know – Todd the photographer used to be in a band with Phil the guitar player from Brisbane’s preeminent comedy band Hooray for Everything.
Here are some YouTube clips.
A lot of good movies have a lot of bad messages at their heart. Subtext is everything. At least that is what the Twilight furore has taught me.
GeekDad has a list of ten harmful lessons we can learn from popular movies…
The Little Mermaid
It’s OK to completely change your physical appearance and way of life for the person you love, even if he makes no sacrifices at all (from The Little Mermaid). This movie has the single most appalling ending of any Disney movie ever made, which is a shame because, apart from that, it’s a great film. I just cannot comprehend how anyone could make a movie in the late 1980s with this message, which is not exactly subtle: Ariel gives up her home, her family, and BEING A MERMAID because she loves Eric so. And he gives up … nothing. Yeah, that marriage is off to a great start.
Have you got any bad life lessons that aren’t there? Other than the standard “crime pays” message that comes from a rollicking gangster comedy, or the “always side with the underdog alien robots because they’ll triumph against the odds” message that comes from both Transformers movies.
Any bets on how much the movie rights to this story will go for?
“Two penniless brothers who live in a cave outside Budapest are to inherit most of a reported £4 billion ($7 billion) after an astonishing twist in their family fortunes.”
These guys also know that despite what the Beatles say – money can buy you love (unless you’re Paul McCartney who knows only too well that it can’t…).
“If this all works out it will certainly make up for the life we have had until now – all we really had was each other – no women would look at us living in a cave.”
Man hugs are pretty awesome. I’ve just been thinking about the furore surrounding the Poe’s Law breach that occured with that Christian Side Hug rap video. It turns out the video was serious – but the origin of the concept was satire.
It used to be that in order for heterosexual males to demonstrate man to man affection they had to engage in play fighting or wrestling. This was a little too subtle. The key to a good, unambiguous piece of man to man affection is to send the right signals during the hug.
This is accomplished using the obligatory three taps, or firm pats, on the back of both parties to the hug. In a group hug – say the hug that comes when celebrating a goal in soccer – these pats are not necessary.
The three pats are said to be non verbal communication for “I’m not gay”… but they are in fact an act of manly testosterone fueled but properly directed aggression.
Here is the rule for hugging expressed in haiku.
Remember fellas
For a successful man hug
Just back slap three times
This easy Japanese poem is the key to more expressive man to man relationships.
That is all.
My friend Todd is a photographer in Brisbane. He has a photoblog. It’s cool. It features mostly weddings but his regular “Fridays on Foot” posts are crackers.
Here’s one that has had a little bit of clever post production done.
The coolest thing about his post was the link to the Tetris Effect on Wikipedia.
People who play Tetris for a prolonged amount of time may then find themselves thinking about ways different shapes in the real world can fit together, such as the boxes on a supermarket shelf or the buildings on a street.[1] In this sense, the Tetris effect is a form of habit. They might also see images of falling Tetris shapes at the edges of their visual fields or when they close their eyes. In this sense, the Tetris effect is a form of hallucination. They might also dream about falling Tetris shapes when drifting off to sleep. In this sense, the Tetris effect is a form of hypnagogic imagery.
Izaac and I have discussed our Tetris effect problem. I had no idea it was widespread enough to earn its own article.
Stickgold et al. (2000) have proposed that Tetris imagery is a separate form of memory, likely related to procedural memory. This is from their research in which they showed that people with anterograde amnesia, unable to form new declarative memories, reported dreaming of falling shapes after playing Tetris during the day, despite not being able to remember playing the game at all.[2] A recent Oxford study (2009) suggests Tetris-like video games may help prevent the development of traumatic memories. If the video game treatment is played soon after the traumatic event, the preoccupation with Tetris shapes is enough to prevent the mental recitation of traumatic images, thereby decreasing the accuracy, intensity, and frequency of traumatic reminders. “We suggest it specifically interferes with the way sensory memories are laid down in the period after trauma and thus reduces the number of flashbacks that are experienced afterwards.”, summarizes Dr. Emily Holmes, who led the study.
I had read about (and posted) that study about Tetris and trauma. But this has opened up a whole new world of normalness to me.
Do you suffer from the Tetris Effect?
I also used to suffer from the GoldenEye effect – I’d be popping bad guys in my dreams after extended sessions on the Nintendo64.
In the latest bit of cool, but mostly frivolous, science – a Harvard Psychiatrist has explained how zombies work. Now we’ve got mathematical modeling of the zombie outbreak and an understanding of their headspace.
The Frontal Lobe
This part of the brain is involved with “executive functioning” – enabling us to think carefully and solve problems in an abstract way. Clearly, there’s not much going on there if you have the misfortune of being afflicted with living deadness. But we do know that zombies can see us and sense us. Schlozman concludes that zombies possess just enough frontal lobe activity to “listen” to the thalamus, through which sensory input is processed.
But the frontal lobe function most relevant to understanding zombie behavior is the control of “impulsivity”-the general term for when you do something and, if you had two more seconds, you might not have done it. For instance, if in a fit of rage you have the sudden urge to punch your boss in the face, the frontal lobe intervenes and allows you to consider why that might be a bad idea.
The Oatmeal has a nice graphical warning about the coming zombie apocalypse. It’ll be eye-opening. But it might contain some words you’ll find offensive – so be warned.
Ever wondered what an evil dictator reads. Would you burn your books if you found out they were Hitler’s favourites.
“He ranked Don Quixote, along with Robinson Crusoe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Gulliver’s Travels, among the great works of world literature. “Each of them is a grandiose idea unto itself,” he said. In Robinson Crusoe he perceived “the development of the entire history of mankind”. Don Quixote captured “ingeniously” the end of an era. He was especially impressed by Gustave Doré’s depictions of Cervantes’s delusion-plagued hero.”…
He was versed in the Holy Scriptures and owned a particularly handsome tome with “Worte Christi” (Words of Christ) embossed in gold on a cream-coloured calfskin cover that even today remains as smooth as silk. He also owned a German translation of Henry Ford’s anti-semitic tract The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem and a 1931 handbook on poison gas, with a chapter detailing the qualities and effects of prussic acid, the homicidal asphyxiant marketed commercially as Zyklon B. On his bedstand, he kept a well-thumbed copy of Wilhelm Busch’s mischievous cartoon duo Max and Moritz.
More brilliance from The Oatmeal. All the stuff you should know about beer.
Rockclimbing is a stupid activity driven by some primal urge to reach high points and uncharted territory.
XKCD expresses the rockclimbing mentality best by lampooning wannabe rockclimbers. It’s all about being seen to be awesome.
I see through your ruse climbers.
And I loved Soph from the fountainside’s comment on Ben’s post.
I reckon Christians want activities that are ‘cool’ to do, but our obedience to Scripture stops us from doing things the world considers ‘cool’ – i.e. going to parties, raves, pubs and bars…pretty much anything to do with alcohol.
So we tend to flock towards activities that have some cool cred without the ‘worldly’ factor. This is why christian people like random things such as rock climbing, board games, bikes, coffee (the holy man’s drug), jazz (the holy man’s version of ‘cool’ music) and BBC dramas (the holy man’s movie choice).