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Yet one more reason to do other things...
I've come across a wonderful little toy that costs you nothing - provided you don't try and make money with it. It's called Terragen and it's software that let's you render 3D landscapes. The learning curve is low, and it's a lot of fun.
Here is a sample of my first:
and my second:
.
The links to the larger images can soon be found in the Miscellaneous Art section.
Have fun!
There are never enough hours in a day.
Lately I've been frustrated by the seeming incompatibility of my job with my reading schedule; and of my reading schedule with all of my other pursuits. When I was a student, I read an awful amount of stuff, because it was required, but I still managed to find time for my own pleasure reading amidst all the work I needed to do. And I looked forward to the day when I could come home from work and find myself with plenty of time to read.
Only it hasn't happened yet.
Oh, the job has. But I don't find myself with ample amounts of time like I had hoped. I think it's been almost a week since I've managed to find myself with enough time to sit down and enjoy good material for longer than 10 minutes.
Of course, lately, this has been my own doing, as I've been spending my free hours revamping the back-end of my website. Nothing that you'd see if you came to visit, but things that make all of my own personal manipulations so much easier. Manipulations to the database, revamping my maintenance page javascript, and changing the elements of my content management system.
After only 26 hours of deliberation, the College of Cardinals elected Cardinal Ratzinger as the successor to Pope John Paul II. Ratzinger took the name Benedict XVI, but has received various sobriquets, including "God's Rottweiler," and "German Shepherd," the response to the Rottweiler comment. So why the varied commentary?
As it turns out, Ratzinger served as John Paul II's chief theologian for the past two decades, and so follows along in the same theological bent, a fact that makes many happy. Others, however, seem to think that the church missed a great opportunity to bring the church into the 21st century (see Durso's comment, among others).
The primary goal of the liberal contingent is to get the Church's blessing on abortion, divorce, gay & lesbian rights, women priests, and married clergy. They want this because - after all - this is what the rest of the world is doing in these enlightened times. Unfortunately, what most people fail to realize is that the moral and ethical choices that they are promoting, are the very moral and ethical choices the church has fought against for the last 2000 years. The self-indulgent lifestyles of the Greeks and Romans were far from what the Church asked of the followers of Christ both then, and now. The Church has always stood up against the common morality of every age, and presented another morality to rival it. Why should the Church suddenly shift its stance on theological issues now, when it has stood firm for so many generations? After all, the issues here are theological, moral, and ethical - things which do not change - and not matters of being relevant to the Age at all. The Church needs to be relevant to the time, and relevant for all time. After all, it's here to tell us what God wants from us, and not to give us what we want from God.
Yesterday, as I walked throught the Caltech Campus, I suddenly heard a jet engine whining above, and turned in time to see a dark, elongated spear flying overhead.
Given that we are close to JPL, and near several air force bases, I thought I was seeing an experimental airplane. It took me a moment to realize that it was a B-2 Stealth Bomber in a sharp right bank. As it slowly banked back to horizontal, it took on the familiar V-shape.
Apparently, the bomber did an overfly for the opening day of Dodger Stadium, but as I was searching for the reason for this thing flying overhead, I found the following link for a puzzle game:
http://www.bugimus.com/stealth/stealth.html.
Have fun.
Having recently had to do my own "denomination shopping" I ran across an interesting article on Catholic.org that discusses the concept of "Church Shopping."
Though it may be long, it is a good article; don't give up too readily. Read it here.
Simply beautiful.
Need I say more?
(Except of course that registered trademarks -and c in a circle- belong to Playskool & LucasFilm respectively.)
Apparently there is a connection between caffeine and headaches. Specifically, the lack of caffeine causes headaches.
Gee, that's nothing new, you say. We all knew that. And I'm sure you're right.
We've all heard of the headaches caused when trying to quit drinking coffee, or taking in any form of caffeine. Apparently caffeine has the effect of opening the blood vessels so that more blood can get to the various parts of the body. More blood = more oxygen. That's why we get the feeling of clarity when taking in caffeine, and the feeling of light-headedness when we take in too much. Trouble is, when you quit, your blood vessels are used to getting a certain amount of stimulation to open them up, and they get used to certain times of the day that the extra stimulation will be coming.
So here's the problem. When no caffeine comes, the blood vessels still expect to expand, and prompt themselves for it. No caffeine comes, and the result is an inflammation of the blood vessels and surrounding area. Inflammation = pain, and hence the headaches.
Now, having been a heavy user of caffeine products, I just recently experienced first hand all the symptoms of major withdrawal. On Sunday I began my ordeal, and found the base of my skull pounding by Sunday evening. I was in bed by 8pm, and didn't arise until 7am the next morning. The following day, Monday, my headache set in at 8am, and, at 1pm I was struggling with hot-flashes, cold-sweats, sluggishness, fog-headedness, and a pounding headache in the base of my skull. By 5pm I was vomiting, with the shakes. Mysteriously, by 730pm the headache had all but lifted. Tuesday, the headache set in at 10am, pounded the base of my skull for several hours in a thick fog, then lifted again around 6pm. Today, Wednesday, the headache only managed to set in around 2pm, and will most likely lift by the end of the evening.
Why the time frame? I can only imagine that it is because of my use of coffee during the normal business hours. I normally have my first cup of coffee at 8am, a second one at 10am, another at noon, and then a few more as the day goes by. Never later than 5pm. So that would explain my body getting used to caffeine at certain hours, and the headaches lifting at the later part of the day.
As an aside, one of the pages I consulted before beginning this ordeal suggested that the majority of headaches in the U.S. are caused by caffeine withdrawals, rather than other symptoms. The argument seems valid enough, since part of my caffeine cleansing requires that I drink no more Cola, eat no more chocolate (big caffeine culprit), and stay away from various random pre-packaged foods, more than one of which contains a random sampling of caffeine. Apparently there is more than one reason than great taste that we return to the same prepackaged foods...
Today in my journey through CG Jung's Modern Man in Search of a Soul I ran across the following quote:
"Our world is so exceedingly rich in delusions that a truth is priceless, and no one will let it slip because of a few exceptions with which it cannot be brought into accord."
Jung was discussing the varieties of opinion and viewpoints in the psychoanalytic realm, and the seeming inability of most practicioners to move beyond the truth they know and incorporate new truths - even if those truths seem to conflict with the first. Nevertheless, it seems that this statement applies also to any field of study or interest, as Jung goes on to say:
"Whoever doubts this truth is of course looked upon as a faithless reprobate, while a lot of fanaticism and intolerance creeps into the discussion on all sides."
Go ahead, I dare you: try and apply this comment to any area of discussion. You'll soon find it to be true...