Done so far this week (20100823 Mo - 25 We)

[mdlbear]

0823 Mo
  * up 7:10; W=193; drugs, nose, teeth; laundry, dishes, coffee, breakfast
  * backups:  2010-08-23T08:00:50-0700 - 2010-08-23T08:52:11-0700
    /dev/sda5            1349854392 456861924 824423840  36% /media/bak
  & left glasses at home.
    No wonder I was having trouble reading street signs!
  @ Kindle and the future of reading : The New Yorker
  * short walk.  Hot; call from YD saying she can't find her phone.
  % sleepy.  brain offline for almost an hour
  @ Digital copycats: Personal digitization of books catching on across Japan
  @ From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space - Lightweight Linux Distributions
  * pick up YD's lost phone at DeVry.
    Reunited at last -- the end of the world has been postponed indefinitely.
  @ - Flattr for Crowdfunding
  & IM with N about leaving a conversation at a superficial level, or steering
    it to a deep one.  I tend not to try the latter; maybe I should sometimes.
  @ Seahorse - Encryption Made Easy
  @ The Ray Bradbury video tribute I never expected to see | guardian.co.uk
  @ A look at rsync performance [LWN.net] 
  @ Algorithmic Music Composition With Linux - athenaCL | Linux Journal
  * bed ~11:45; snuggle

0824 Tu
  * awake 6:45; snuggle; up 6:30; W=194; drugs; dishes, coffee
  @ The Ferrett - The B&N Conundrum, Part II: Why Didn't Bookstores
    Own The Net? 
  @ Ron Paul vs Rand Paul on "Ground Zero Mosque" -... | Gather
  @ Totally Awesome Space Colonies - Boing Boing via gmcdavid
    (from NASA's Space Settlement site)
  @ The "Ground Zero mosque" debate is about tolerance--and a whole
    lot more. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine via gmcdavid
  * buy:  D -- load Tuesday bins  (also fish oil and pantsu)
  * bath; bed ~midnight; snuggle

0825 We
  * up 6:35; W=195.2; (load) drugs, nose, teeth; coffee, dishes, laundry
  * YD doesn't have school this morning.
  @ The Mad Filkentist - Dogma as a group identity marker
  @ Technology Review: Mims's Bits: Predicting the Death of Print
  @ Google Is from Mars; Facebook Is from Venus - BusinessWeek
  @ Official Google Blog: Call phones from Gmail
  @ Russia in color, a century ago - The Big Picture - Boston.com
    via cflute WOW!
  * guests left about 10:30; bed ~11; snuggle

Not such a good week so far -- it's been way too hot (cooling off today, thankfully), and my mood has been deteriorating between work, health care, and retirement worries.

You get lots and lots of good links under the cut, though. These color pictures from Russia, a century ago are simply amazing. And print could go away faster than anyone expected.

Comments

[saffronrose.livejournal.com]

"No wonder I was having trouble reading street signs!"

No wonder everything is fuzzy--I've got my reading glasses on, and forgot to change to walking/driving glasses before I left my desk!

That's my version.

"There's a saying which goes something like: "For those who understand, no explanation is necessary. For those who don't understand, no explanation is possible." This perfectly captures the mindset of superiority through belief." mad Filkentist

This reminds me more of the explanation of a Mystery: if you've endured/gone through it, no explanation is necessary; if you haven't been there yet, no *complete* explanation is available. Experiential or belief--lots of similar characteristics at times.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Another way of putting that is "the secret (or Mystery) that cannot be told" - not that it's forbidden to tell it, but that it's impossible to convey it in words; it's something that has to be experienced directly. There's am enormous difference between "I can't explain it to you - you just have to believe" and "I can't explain it to you - you have to experience it yourself", though - I stand firmly with experience, rather than uncritical faith.

[saffronrose.livejournal.com]

It's just odd that the adherents use nearly the same language.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Perhaps belief itself is something one has to experience first-hand in order to understand it. I don't seem to be capable of believing in anything without at least some sort of empirical, albeit subjective, confirmation. This is how I manage to be both a classic agnostic and a Priestess. I have found, through my own subjective experiences, that behaving as if certain things were "true" can lead to certain desirable results; however, this doesn't seem to fit the common definition of "belief". I can't take anything just on someone else's say-so, so I guess I don't "believe in" anything.

Experiences that can't be explained, or otherwise conveyed in words, are fairly common. Ever try explaining one's first sexual experiences to someone who hasn't had any yet? Childbirth? An unfamiliar flavor or aroma? Flying a plane? Falling in love for the first time? All perfectly common, mundane experiences, but until one has had them, one can't imagine what they're like.

[saffronrose.livejournal.com]

We are in complete agreement.

[mdlbear]

Yes, that.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

I know that you've started allowing yourself to have experiences for which you have no prior referent, and I've enjoyed reading your accounts of how surprised you are by them. That's pretty much the point; until you actually had such experiences, all you had was a vague idea of what an abstract word like "happiness" might mean, and no amount of explaining would have had any effect. After experiencing it, and realizing that that was what the word meant, no explaining was necesary ;-)

[mdlbear]

Thanks. Though often the experience takes a long time to connect with its proper word, if there even is one. Often my experience doesn't seem to match anybody's description.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Describe the experiences here, in your LJ, more often. One or another of your faithful readers will probably come up with the applicable terms.

Dogma as a group identity marker: That would explain it

[capplor.livejournal.com]

quite a few years ago, I was aghast at someone who said "I don't believe in evolution" because her attitude seemed to have nothing to do with the issue itself, not about belief, and not even about faith, but as presenting a credential of "This is how devout I am"

Re: Dogma as a group identity marker: That would explain it

[saffronrose.livejournal.com]

gleaaaah

I notice most pagans can talk equally about the 4/5 elements and energy working in the religious/spiritual sense, but adhere to consensual scientific truth out of that context.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Many of us realize that the words "elements" and "energy" mean different things in different contexts, the way "sharp" and "flat" have different meanings depending on whether the conversation is about music or about physical shapes. Nobody confuses "slightly higher in frequency" with "able to cut cleanly", and I daresay very few pagans confuse "Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit" with "iron, oxygen, sulfur, hydrogen, plutonium".

[saffronrose.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Tho' I do recall heated exchanges some years ago (can't remember if it was a pagan list I was on, or something from the 80's while at Xerox, on email) about the nature of "energy" and how it should/should not mean the same mundanely and spiritually. I left because it devolved into a shouting match about religion vs "scientism".

[mdlbear]

I've always had more trouble keeping the different kinds of "energy" apart than the elements. The Four Elements map nicely into the four states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, plasma.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

And what state of matter would you map to the fifth "element", Spirit(*)? :-D

(*) Or Heart, Magic(k), Aethyr, etc.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Some people just can't seem to be happy unless they've got their knickers in a knot... *sigh