More Book Blitz, another Link Barrage, and hopefully-coherent thoughts on (OMFG) Watchmen hopefully to follow tomorrow / this week. For now, though:
The good (I’m assuming) people at FlowingData.com (they do charts) have provided some assistance for us right-brainers struggling to make sense of this all this financial gobbledygook. To help us understand the nature and origins of the present fiscal crisis, they have provided over twenty-five handy-dandy hi-res illustrations, with some attendent words (or, in their parlance, “Visualizations and Infographics”). [HT: The Urbanophile]
That’s all well and good. But as far as our stimulus package is concerned, I’ve seen no better visual metaphor than this one:
[There was a video here, but the embed sucked. Balls.]
Quick, now, like a fox — the kind of quick, red fox which is partial to jumping over lazy dogs:
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Review in 11 words or less: Third time is the charm for me. Slow, but above average.*
It Came From Within by Andy Stanley
Review in 10 words or less: Like Donald Miller: so easy to read, it was hard.
Is God to Blame? by Gregory A. Boyd
Review in 9 words or less: Boyd — maybe Open Thiest. Do not care. Big fan.
What Should I Do If Reverend Billy Is In My Store? by Bill Talen
Review in 8 words or less: Felt odd. Disjointed. Thus the Odd God commands . . . ?
A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin
Review in 7 words or less: No Tyrion, Daenerys? Half a book!? Frak!
Yes. So.
The last ten books I’ve read are:
1. A Feast for Crows
2. What Should I Do if Reverend Billy Is in My Store?
3. Is God to Blame?
4. It Came From Within
5. Pattern Recognition
6. Reconcilation Blues by Edward Gilbreath
7. A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin
8. Cross-Cultural Servanthood by Duane Elmer
9. What’s So Amazing About Grace? by Philip Yancey
10. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Currently Reading:
Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God by Gordon Fee
You’ll Like This Film Because You’re In It by Michel Gondry
Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr.
*Also: He took a duck in the face at two hundred and fifty knots.
So, I booted up my old, unused Twitter account yesterday, hoping to find a way to integrate it into the site, but I’m not sure it’s possible without an upgrade. I’m not a big fan of the idea of Twitter in general, but I figured it would be a quick and easy way to post interesting links. You see, I post a couple links on my Facebook feed every week at least, which isn’t phenomenal but better than I’m doing here. On Facebook, though, the point is just to post the link with minimal or no comment, whereas on a blog, the idea is to “discuss” and “commentate.” These are activities which are surprisingly taxing in my current mental state, but I feel guilty posting just a link on a blog.
Eh, it’s better than nothing. Here’s a balanced and trenchant article about the complexity of building a truly “sustainable” food industry.
Also wins a Silver Duh! for this statement:
The reality of 21st-century America is that food demand is centered in cities, while most arable land is in rural areas.
Jesus Sermon on
the Mount. Funny things written
on shirts. Plantinga.
. . . It feels like somebody took my heart, and dropped it into a bucket of boiling tears. And, at the same time, somebody else is hitting my soul in the crotch with a frozen sledgehammer. And then a third guy walks in and starts punching me in the grief bone, and I am crying, and nobody can hear me. Because I am terribly, terribly, terribly alone.
– Michael Scott, Dunder-Mifflin Scranton
I’m not sure that anyone is all that concerned, but the reason that a) I failed to post for a long time (not including the recent week-long-ish spurt) and b) that week-long-ish spurt consisted of absolutely nothing of consequence (and / or interest) is that I am lazy and would rather reload Facebook at five-second intervals and use the intervening time to giggle guiltily at Schadentwitter (i.e., www.fmylife.com) than attempt a meaningful blog post.
Wait. Did I say that? Not what I meant to say. A true explanation, but not the one I was trying to communicate. What I’m trying to say here is that, like Michael Scott, I feel like someone is hitting my soul in the crotch with a frozen sledgehammer. This somewhat dissipates by interest in blogging, and pretty much everything else, actually, except eating, sleeping and re-watching every single episode of Arrested Development.
I’ve never been or wanted to be the whiner, but I find myself at a point in my life where I legitimately have very little positive to say. I’m sure that, like the crew of the intrepid Battlestar Galactica, whose planets were nuked and whose fleet was invaded by robots that looked like humans who attempted to sabotage their fleet and who spent three and a half seasons looking for a mysterious planet called Earth where they could make their home in peace only to find out it was a barren wasteland from whence those cyborgs had come from in the first place, I am indeed making my way toward some kind of happy or at least intellectually satisfying conclusion. (I’m playing “All Along the Watchtower” a lot to make sure this happens.)
Until then, though.
- The post theater is finally getting some good movies in — Valkyrie this weekend; Watchmen (!) next friday, Doubt the next week, I Love You, Man & Frost/Nixon later in the month. Actually, I’m not sure about the quality of any of those movies; “good” just means “film I have some interest at all in seeing.” No telling yet if/when we’re getting Slumdog Millionaire or Coraline.
- I stupidly signed up for the teaser e-mails from a UGA football subscribtion news website and I haven’t been able to figure out how to unsubscribe, though now I’m determined to do so. On Wednesday I got an e-mail entitled: “Breaking News: Richt Makes Staff Changes.” The text was only: “In somewhat of a surprised [sic] move, Georgia football coach Mark Richt has made a change that most thought would never happen,” and a link to the relevant article.
Now, anyone who has followed Georgia football since the 2006 season, and especially since the conclusion of our “disastrous” 10-3 campaign last fall, would immediately expect the “change that most thought would never happen” to be the firing or release of defensive coordinator Willie Martinez. Like undoubtedly every other person who recieved the e-mail, I clicked through breathlessly, only to discover that the real “story” was this.
Really, now, TotalUGA. Is that how you treat your readers and subscribers — by visciously toying with their emotions to drive your hit rate up? The fate of our defensive coordiantor is not a subject to be bandied about lightly. Shame on you. If I had a notice board, you’d be on it. (Oh, and your week-long series on Orson Charles is going to look pretty funny in retrospect if he picks Southern Cal or Juniorville).
- In other Georgia sports news, the Diamond Dogs opened the season at 9-0 for only the second time ever. Too bad baseball bores the crap out of me.
- I’m not sure when I’m going to get around to offering a reply to this, mostly because I’m not yet sure what I think about it, probably because I agree with parts and disagree with others.
- Facebook is changing its homepage? Yawn. Here’s to six more months of variations on the PETITON TO BRING HTE OLD FACEBOOK BACK!! group.
- Speaking of Facebook groups, I joined the group Get Demetri Martin to Come to Athens!, because even though I won’t be there to enjoy him, everyone deserves a little more Demetri in their lives.
- Regardless of taxonomic labels, all porcupines are nocturnal. Most species are strict herbivores, though a few will eat an occasional bug or two (usually after watching an episode of Man vs. Wild). Porcupines recieve a passing grade at Animal Review.
- In closing, I just want to let everyone know that it really bugs me that not only is Greg Boyd probably much more scholarly and intelligent than I will ever be, he is way cooler now, at middlish age, than I, newly in my twenties, will ever be. I mean seriously: scruffy facial hair, sunglasses and bandana? And he’s a drummer whose progeny has been recognized by nationally-read bloggers? Sheesh.
One is Christ the Son of God,
Worshiped by all in two natures;
In His Godhead begotten of the Father,
Without beginning before all time;
In His humanity born of Mary,
In the fullness of time, in a body united;
Neither His Godhead is of the nature of the mother,
Nor His humanity of the nature of the Father;
The natures are preserved in their Substance,
In one person of one Sonship.
And as the Godhead is three substances in one nature,
Likewise the Sonship of the Son is in two natures, one person.
So the Holy Church has taught.
– Babai the Great (c.551-628), father of the Assyrian Church of the East (link)
I’m just getting into this podcast dealio, so I don’t know if this will become a regular feature. I kinda hope it will, but I’m averaging about one podcast per week so I’ll have to ramp up my listening habits.
In any case, after I got assigned dishes duty for my smart mouth (not really . . . I hope) I plugged in my iPod to my dad’s external speaker set and tried out one of the hundred or so podcasts I have eagerly downloaded and equally eagerly avoided listening to. I chose “Dwelling, Glory, Grace and Truth,” a sermon delivered by Cornelius Plantinga Jr. at Mars Hill Bible Church (Grand Rapids, MI) on January 25.
In one sentence: this is the best sermon on the nature of Jesus I have ever heard.
Plantinga preaches on John 1:14, “the word became flesh.” Just like in his writing, he speaks with passion, eloquence, humor (he makes an ironic joke around the half-way point of the sermon that I thought was hilarious and spot-on), and honesty. I really appreciated his exploration of John’s assertion that Jesus was “full of grace and truth.”
The sermon is about 28 minutes and avaliable via iTunes from the Mars Hill Bible Church podcast.
This is over a week old — which is old news, apparently, in the world of cybersecurity and cyberdouchebaggery — but I think it’s interesting regardless.
The makers of the “Error Check” application — a malicious viral application for Facebook that debuted around the 21st of February — are pretty devious. Since their application had a unique name, the creation of a single page was enough to grab the top Google search result for “error check system.” Ostensibly, the site warned about the Error Check application and provided a link to ensure a user’s system had not been contaminated. But the “third-party virus scan” that link led to was in fact a link to a pair of Trojan-style viruses. So the creators were able to snag the people who were suspicious enough to look up their “Error Check” application, but not quite careful enough to avoid downloadable “virus scans.” Tricky.
Of course, these are presumably the same people who produced this. The circled statement underneath “About this Application” made me crack-up. Oh well. I guess even hackers slip up every now and then.
See: Beware Spyware Application Called “Error Check System” ; Facebook Hit With Malicious App, Searchers Duped
