February 2008
"Fogcatchers": a new source for potable water →
In remote Chilean villages where fresh water is often scarce and contaminated, a simple new technology — mesh sheets strung between posts — captures condensation from coastal fog, providing an abundant and reliable source of cheap drinking water. (Source: www.idrc.ca)
January 2008
Test post from WinTumblr
I’m testing a post from WinTumblr, a Windows Tumblr client.
“My predictions are that this new Yahoo service will be just another chatcasting...”
– Smojo Speaks » My views and perspective of my life, the web, traveling and of course lifecasting.
“In der Tat, wir Philosophen und “freien Geister” fühlen uns bei der...”
– Friedrich Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (la gaya scienza) (1882), Bk. IV, para. 343 (link)
“Carcasse, tu trembles? Tu tremblerais bien davantage, si tu savais, où je te...”
– Henri de la tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne (1611-1675) (“You tremble, carcass? But if you knew where I am taking you, you would tremble a lot more.”)
“It’s harder than you think to write the sort of song that keeps your...”
– Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas on his creative process, from an interview in Radar (link)
“Thus, a Jacksonian student of landscape can observe a Red Barn hamburger joint,...”
– James Howard Kunstler, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape (Free Press, 1994), pp. 123f.
“The Buddhist Sutra of Mindfulness speaks about the meditation on the corpse:...”
– Thich Nhat Hanh on meditation (link)
Travelling by bus in Sweden? Beware of dwarves →
One of the weirdest news stories I’ve read in some time. Apparently some criminal gangs are smuggling dwarves in duffel bags into the luggage compartment of long-haul buses, where they loot the other passengers’ bags. (Source: www.telegraph.co.uk)
“Despite all the political misery I am confronted with every day, it still is my...”
– Václav Havel, attributed to an International Herald Tribune article dated Oct. 29, 1991 (via Wikiquote)
“The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she...”
– Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (link)
“A quantum of force is also a quantum of driving, willing, acting, and it is only...”
– Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), tr. Douglas Smith (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996).
WatchSpeaking of Faith (American Public Radio): Discovering Where We Live, Reimagining Environmentalism (link)
Václav Havel's 1994 speech on transcendence →
Inspiring, but also provocative and fascinating. Havel basically insists that some kind of religiousness is all that can “save” us now, though he doesn’t really say how or what. (Source: www.worldtrans.org)
“The cross, therefore, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter where...”
– Thomas à Kempis (ca. 1380-1471), The Imitation of Christ (1418), Book II, ch. 12, “On the Royal Road of the Holy Cross.”
Watch
Newsflash about me: I got tenure! →
This is a personal note… This semester, I was up for tenure at the small Pennsylvania college where I work. I was just informed a few days ago that my tenure bid was approved. This clip says a little bit about what that means. (Source: ursinus.facebook.com)
“Ask each several man; let him tell you if he love God. He cries out, he...”
– St. Augustine, Homilies on First John, homily 9, paragraph 10 (link).
“The Lord had spoken to Isaiah son of Amoz, saying, “Go, and loose the...”
– Isaiah 20.2ff.
Scrapbook theme for Tumblr-hosted tumblelogs →
Slavoj Žižek on the Matrix →
This is Žižek’s famous 1999 essay, “The Two Sides of Perversion.” I’m clipping it because I intend to read it; the bits I’ve looked at are very good. (Source: www.lacan.com)
Scientists create world’s blackest black - Innovation- msnbc.com via kwout
“Reverence is a religious, and not a scholarly virtue. When good manners and good...”
– Bruce Lincoln, “Theses on Method,” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 8 (1996): 225-227 (link).
“Just as my anger and my wrath were poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem,...”
– Jeremiah 42.18
“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because...”
– John 5.30f.
