Christian Theism is the belief that God is a personal, transcendent Creator of the universe–and of us. This world view showed up on a T-shirt I saw recently:
There are two things in life you can be sure of.
1. There is a God.
2. You are not Him.– From this article: Answering the Big Questions of Life by Sue Bohlin
Category: Silly
Wallow in silliness here
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Quote
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Book review: Eats, shoots & leaves
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
“Why?” asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
“I’m a panda,” he says, at the door. “Look it up.”
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
“Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”
Basically, it ought to be impossible to write an entertaining book on punctuation, but Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss is a wonderful, short read, full of practical tips on placing those pesky commas, colons, semi-colons and full stops as well as lots of amusing anecdotes.
The book is especially funny when the author describes her horror at seeing public examples of erroneuos punctuation, such as the move title Two Weeks Notice (should be Two Weeks’ Notice). She has actually picketed a movie theater showing the movie, armed with a large apostrophe on a stick which she held up to correct the title.
An amusing and interesting read: what more could you ask for.
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Fun and earnestness
Den som kun
ta’r sp?g for sp?g
og alvor
kun alvorligt
han og hun
har faktisk fattet
begge dele d?rligt.Taking fun
as simply fun
and earnestness
in earnest
shows how thoroughly
thou none
of the two
discernest.Zwischen Scherz
und Ernst vermag
der nur scharf
zu scheiden
welcher gr?ndlich
missversteht
die Natur
der Beiden.Qui prend le jeu
rien q’uen jeu,
le serieux
aut serieux,
a m?compris
un tout petit peu
le vrait esprit
de tous les deux.– Piet Hein
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List of -ologies
Straight from Wikipedia via Kottke: A list of -ologies. If, like me, you’re always confusing epistemology, etymology and entomology, this is one fine list to have.
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Hektor, the swiss graffiti robot
Gizmodo put me onto this extremely cool swiss graffiti robot, which is basically a spray can, a computer, two steppper motors and some string. Check out the video of the robot painting a work of art for an exhibition, it’s a sight to behold.
Reading about that project made we want to be a geek again. I have a long past in the IT business, and there’s just something about a project that cool and that useless that makes some part of me want to do it. To work out all the details involved ant then finally see it in action. To slave loooong nights over obscure little problems, that I probably created myself in the first place. To disappear into a process so intense and so goal-oriented and so clear that sleep, food, politics, TV, movies and keeping up a normal social life take the back seat to fixing the next bug. And the next.
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Confessions of a bookie
Tucsons local bookie, The Baron, wants to quit, and the Tucson weekly has a very interesting and funny article about it:
The Baron wants out. He’s had enough. Enough of the all-nighters, the booze, the bad habits and most of all, the degenerate gamblers–the DGs, as he calls ’em–and their worthless excuses when it comes time to pay up.“It’s a gut wrench, this life,” the local bookie says with a shrug as he orders a White Russian to calm his stomach.
This quote caught my eye:
“Men don’t bet to win,” he says. “They bet to almost lose.”What he means: The gambling high only lasts while the action is in question. If you’re up 50 points at halftime, you’re no longer even interested in watching the game. But if you’re only winning by a field goal, you’re glued to the set, cursing every blown play and turnover, gleefully howling with every first down.
That’s kinda interesting, because it could be part of the drive behind your typical entrepreneur also. As long as a project is new and shiny and in doubt, it’s interesting. Once it really gets going and it’s a sure thing, it’s no longer interesting.
“Men don’t bet to win, they bet to almost lose.” That’s poetry.
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Lord of the rings
As you may have figured out from some previous posts, I’m a huge fan of the LOTR movies, and now I’ve found a treasure trove of info from people involved in the filming here.
My favourite quote:
On a day when it was mostly Elves, it was slightly an attention-seeking day – all the Elves needed a haircut, or their costumes had to be spotless. When it was a scene with a whole lot of hobbits, you just realized lunch got eaten a lot quicker, and there was a lot of joking going on!
– Dominic Monaghan (Merry)
