"Crackpot Technologies" That Could Shake Up IT

• Nanotechnology
• Optical computing
• Pervasive computing
• Wireless power
• The $100 laptop
• Direct brain interfaces
• Enterprise supercomputing
• Virtual worlds

From Infoworld

Fast Forwarding & Fast Free

I realize that the Western Church has been "enjoying" Lent for a couple of weeks already but, now, the Eastern Churches (and all those who follow the "Orthodox" Paschalion - with Pascha (Easter) falling on 27 April this year) are starting to gear up for their Lent as well. The season of the Lenten Triodion began yesterday (Sun 17 Feb) with the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee.

From ORTHODIXIE via Matushka Ann Lardas:

Whatever calender you use, if you're Orthodox, this is a fast free week, so that when we eat our ice cream on Wednesday and pizza on Friday we will remember that we sin like the Publican more than we fast like the Pharisee, so we should be humble like the first -- and fast like the second.

Next week is the last normal week till after Bright Week. Wednesday and Fridays are fast days but we can have meat the other days.

The next week is Cheese Fare week, when Wednesday and Friday are NOT fast days but we don't have meat all week in anticipation of the fast.

Then, BAM! Clean Monday comes, and Lent is upon us.

But for this week, enjoy.

---

Some Fasting Guidelines as Prescribed by the Orthodox Church

About the Benedictines

Part of an interview with Fr Giles, a monk of Pluscarden Abbey in Scotland - from The Hermeneutic of Continuity.

Top 10 tips for becoming the best blogger ever

From CodeThinked:

1) Make promises you can't keep - I promise if you read this blog every day you'll be the best programmer ever in one year!

2) Make statements and claims that you can't possibly defend - no one is more popular than the guy who is constantly saying ridiculous crap. (Can you say Bill O'Reilly?)

3) Make inflammatory posts about other bloggers (preferably those whose blogs are already popular) - Your popularity will skyrocket once the other blogger posts his/her "that guy is a douchebag" response post.

4) Insert completely pointless and totally off-topic images into your posts - My favorite is the staircase.

5) Reference rules and statistics that are completely made up - In reality though, I've heard that only about 20% of bloggers actually do this.

6) Brag about how much money your ads bring in - Mine? Oh, I have earned 6 bucks so far this month. Take that!

7) Go out of your way to offend an entire group of people - For example "windows users", "Republicans", "Democrats", "Grandmothers" or pretty much anyone who holds different views than yours.

8) Post 18 times a day - Sure, go ahead and made a post about what you had for breakfast, then you can make another one later about what it was like coming out! Oh, and that guy who cut you off on the way to work, you should blog about that too.

9) Ask questions with no answers - You really should ask your users questions that no one can answer but everyone thinks they can. Will doing this really make you popular?

10) Make top 10 lists - no one will ever take you seriously unless you can fit all of your opinions into bullet points.

The definition of insanity

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

– Benjamin Franklin

And the 14 Grand Engineering Challenges of the 21st Century Are...

From Wired Science:

• Make solar energy affordable.
• Provide energy from fusion.
• Develop carbon sequestration methods.
• Manage the nitrogen cycle.
• Provide access to clean water.
• Restore and improve urban infrastructure.
• Advance health informatics.
• Engineer better medicines.
• Reverse-engineer the brain.
• Prevent nuclear terror.
• Secure cyberspace.
• Enhance virtual reality.
• Advance personalized learning.
• Engineer the tools for scientific discovery.

Don Cherry

A very nice commentary by Howard Berger:

Millions of people watch Don Cherry in his Coach's Corner segment each Saturday on Hockey Night In Canada. Perhaps 2% of TV viewers have ever met the man. As a result, 98% of those tuning in wouldn't realize that Cherry's presentation is mostly schtick. A dog-and-pony act with Ron MacLean that both men understand is a magnet for hockey watchers. And an absolute ratings bonanza for the CBC. The part of Cherry that is lesser known and acknowledged is his warm, caring nature. He'll do almost anything for charity, or for an ill person that is brought to his attention.

Several years ago, the father of one of my friends was dying of cancer, and my buddy wondered if Cherry might have time to give the man a call. The dying person was a big fan of Coach's Corner and my pal suggested that hearing from Cherry would brighten his day. I phoned Don with the request and he told me to leave it with him. A few days later, I found out that not only did Cherry phone the man, but he arranged for a limo to pick him up and drive him to his Mississauga, Ont. restaurant. There, Don took the time to have lunch with the stricken man.

Cherry will probably curse me for telling this story, because he prefers to do his good deeds anonymously. But, I feel it's important for TV viewers to realize that the moments he spends commemorating Canadian soldiers that are lost in Afghanistan are the most genuine moments of his weekly program. No person in this country has done more for the morale of our servicemen, or has better represented the memory of those we have lost.

The Oprah Club

From S.M. Hutchens, writing at Touchstone - Mere Comments:

Whenever Oprah Winfrey comes out with a new book club selection, we at the public library know it within twenty seconds. This is no exaggeration. The Oprah books are, of course, favored almost exclusively by women. Middle-aged white women comprise the largest group of fiction readers. I expect them to be reading the kind of stuff she recommends, even without her recommendation. What happens when Oprah selects is that the huge number of them who are currently reading Danielle Steel or Sue Grafton or Nora Roberts are alerted to another woman-type fiction book and all crowd over to the lee rail of that particular literary ship to get sight of something they might otherwise have passed over, since the Oprah books are typically not mere entertainment, but entertainment salted with cracker-barrel philosophy that helps them feel, well, whatever it is that Oprahites need to feel.

Her audience (as I can see it from where I sit) is interesting in that she seems to range considerably outside this group of typical fiction readers to younger women, non-whites, and the less-educated. If mere literacy is a societal value, then Oprah certainly encourages it, and deserves every bit of lionessization that American Library Association types can lavish on her.

Mere literacy has no value in itself. It is worthy only as the servant of virtue. The virtues of Oprahism, however, appear to be subordinate to, and ordered by, the prime virtue of self-realization and self-actualization rather than that of finding the self by losing it in sacrificial service to others, subject to the will of God. Its heroes tend to be Prometheans injured by, and in defiance of, the Traditional Moral Order (let us all weep for them a bit), lap-christs for the entertainment of silly women. Oprahism, to be sure, is chock-full of "virtues," but the order in which they are placed relative to one another in the scheme of the whole makes the phenomenon a veil of evil.

LifeSiteNews - Ominous Connections

From LifeSiteNews:

LifeSiteNews Message for February 13

Dear LifeSiteNews readers,

Many new readers of LifeSiteNews have difficulty making a connection between abortion, euthanasia, contraception, feminism, explicit sex education, promotion of homosexuality, de-population programs, eugenics, environmental extremism, suppression of religious freedom and globalism. We always hope that after a few months of reading LifeSiteNews they begin to see the connection. Many, including most of the world's religious leaders, haven't been exposed to this information, or if they have, still don't get it or, in very many cases, don't have the courage or trust in God to face the disturbing truth.

The development in Brazil, reported in today's top story by our Latin American correspondent Matthew Hoffman, is exciting news. The Brazilian [Roman Catholic] bishops appear to have suddenly come much farther than all others in realizing and accepting the reality of the "big picture", the above mentioned, "connection", that we at LifeSiteNews have been aware of for years. Even more exciting is that they are taking bold actions to hold accountable those responsible for this massive manipulation and abuse of power - even at the highest international levels.

We hope the Brazilian Bishops' example will be emulated by many more leaders throughout the world. The world is in great danger from the de-population totalitarians who have already caused great harm. Theirs is indeed a very dangerous movement of people and organizations who have very little, if any regard for the inherent dignity of every human life and for freedom. What they wish to achieve far exceeds anything accomplished by Nazism or Communism - and so far they have made huge advances. The producers of the film "Demographic Winter" attest to that.

Bravo for the Brazilian bishops who are responding as bishops should, with great courage and boldness for the benefit of those who are being exploited and oppressed.

We suggest that you continue to read LifeSiteNews reports in the context of the above paragraphs. To further your understanding, if you have not already done so, we strongly suggest you take the time to read the most popular document on LifeSiteNews, The Inherent Racism of Population Control, by Paul Jalsevac.

More than any other report on LifeSiteNews, that document reveals the enormous, deadly influence of International Planned Parenthood and other elements of the depopulation/eugenics movement. It explains the connection between all those items in the first paragraph of this message. Please read the document and tell others about it.

Steve Jalsevac LifeSiteNews.com

Niebuhr on Liberal Protestantism

This brought a [knowing] smile to my face. From orrologion:

...In the 1930's, Reinhold Niebuhr famously observed that liberal Protestantism preached "a God without wrath who brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross."