Tree Tops

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Tree tops kissed by fire Branches dappled, dipped in infinite splendour. Miasma root gurgling Encroaching, choking Not fated, kick the goads. Suffuse enervation Heart of lightness Dew-drizzled dazzler Glory. Grace. Gift.

As I mentioned previously, I’m using City of God as my practice text for learning to type in Colemak. I found the following quote from Book I.VIII insightful regarding the importance of virtue:

Wherefore, though good and bad men suffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between the men themselves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer. For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor.

St. Augustine - City of God

Learning To Type in Colemak

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I made a half-hearted attempt to learn to type with Dvorak last year, but it didn’t take. When I saw that Ian was learning Colemak, I decided to dive in as well. I first made a Mac-style Colemak layout so that I’d have something better-looking to reference. It also meant I had a bit more … Read more →

Stop SOPA/PIPA

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Today the Internet protests the idiocy of SOPA/PIPA, many by blacking out their site to demonstrate what these censorship bills could well do to the Internet as we know it. I haven’t bothered with blacking out my site, but I will urge any USAmerican readers of mine to hassle their representatives. Watch a great summary … Read more →

Science is a Cultural System

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In Mirror, Mirror: Religion Gets Explained, But Science …, we hear a pretty typical account of religion from scientific quarters: A number of authors … have suggested that the human proclivity for acquiring and transmitting supernatural agent concepts is an incidental byproduct of cognitive mechanisms genetically adapted for other purposes. … have argued that religions … Read more →

Girl Walk // All Day

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I can’t overstate how happy watching this made me. The dance, the soundtrack by Girl Talk, the infectious joy of the whole thing. After you’ve viewed that trailer, set aside 70 minutes or so to watch the whole thing and be prepared to watch it a few times more.