Jeph Jacques — a terrific comics writer/artist, one-man band, and thoughtful person — has once again run into the uncanny valley of unintended consequences, where what you write (draw, sing, sculpt, design, whatever) engenders responses wildly different from what you expected. Actually, to be more precise, this time he has caught himself at the edge…
All posts in February 2012
‘With The Rich And Mighty, Always A Little Patience’
The news that broke a few days ago that now science reveals that wealthy and powerful people are more likely to lie, steal, cheat, and generally disregard the norms that apply to mere humans seems to have surprised some readers. They evidently have forgotten The Philadelphia Story, one of the sources of formation for our…
Additions To The Gang
I was working away on my commentary on the Epistle of James this past week, when Margaret popped into the office with a small but bulky package. In that package was a very lovely note from my friend and former student Suzie Stark, and within were two very elegant pens that had been Suzie’s mother’s.…
Kicking Wheels
I’ve been playing with Pinwheel this week, and it promises to be very interesting. The premise is that users leave digital notes relative to locations through a web interface (for now; mobile options are in the works) — then other users, in turn, can find these notes and benefit from their colleagues’ wisdom, or nostalgia,…
Click In, Lock In (Lazyweb)?
Dear Lazy Web, On the train yesterday, reading The Multiplayer Classroom, I was thinking about pedagogical problems, problems that could be resolved using lower-tech solutions than arming a classroom full of students with individual clickers. I know I’d really like a way to leverage students’ laptops (many fewer in UK classrooms than in US…
On Death, Part 1
This will get long, so I’ll put most of the matter below the fold. The story is that the Doctrine Committee of the Scottish Episcopal Church keeps its members from idleness by assigning them the annual task of producing a small tract called The Grosvenor Essay on a particular topic. A year ago, it was…
Ten-Year Tape Delay
I’m copy-and-pasting the posts from 2002 and 2003 into my WordPress database, as I think I’ve said before. It’s interesting to observe what blogging was like back then, how long some of us have been talking toeach other (and observing when someone new enters the conversation), noting that Josiah blogged from Sri Lanka when he…
Calling Your Attention
Yesterday I crossed paths with Radio Mick Danger, a site that streams spoken-word material — mostly old radio programs, especially crime drama, but also some classic radio comedy from Burns & Allen and readings of C.S. Lewis’s theological writings. Share and enjoy!
On Miracles
The other day, my [old] grad-school classmate Craig Keener wrote a column for the Huffington Post about belief in miracles. I think that we do agree about some things, but it would take some ground-clearing to figure out where our agreements lie; and since it’s a topic that draws much attention, which topic generates more…
f8 And Be There
As I was walking to the Doctrine Committee meeting in Edinburgh this morning, I was startled to see this: It is not, as it seemed to me to be, a person pushing her head through a window. As it turns out, she was simply leaning over to speak into her phone, and the…
Who’s the Patron of eBooks? (FOSOTNTT)
Among the heaps of roses and chocolates, the fizz and finery, Tim O’Reilly’s Tools of Change conference yesterday brought to the world’s attention two very intriguing ventures in e-publishing applications. The first is Inkling, specifically oriented toward constructing iPad textbooks. It looks powerful, fascinating, shiny, and very strongly oriented toward non-verbal instruction — indeed, their…
Six Degrees of Jaroslav Flegr and Belle and Sebastian
The interwebs were a-buzzing last week when the viral dream team of cats, parasites, and mind control converged in The Atlantic’s story about Czech biologist Jaroslav Flegr and his research into toxoplasmosis. Margaret and I read the column, were duly appreciative, and noted that we weren’t cat people ourselves (my family, while I was growing…