links for 2009-09-30

Left-footed

Last evening, after arriving home from dinner, our family decided to take a walk. Our neighborhood has a small green belt with a walking/biking trail through it, the air was cool, but not too cool, and it just seemed like the right thing to do.
Our six-year-old, Davis, wanted to ride his Razor scooter. Donning his bike helmet, he did so, coasting ahead or behind us, as his pushing and balancing allowed.
At one point, while he was ahead of us, I noted his problem keeping the scooter fully upright while pushing. I thought it might have something to do with the fact that our normally right-handed son was using his left leg and foot to push the scooter along.
I verbally made note of this observation, and suggested he try switching his feet, placing the left on the scooter and pushing with his right. He tried this for a few moments, felt it was worse than before, and switched back.
My wife, thinking along the same lines as I, remarked that he hadn’t really given the right-foot push enough of a try. His reply?
“I’m just left-footed.”

Appreciating our own

“[W]e ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds, from being too strongly, and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own.” –George Washington, letter to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, 1795

links for 2009-09-12

What we’re lacking

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.” –John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756

It’s Time To See Religion Die

Brian “Head” Welch, Save Me From Myself:

All of the man-made religion crap in this world has to die. Whether it’s Christian man-made religion crap or some other man-made religion crap, it all has to die. It must grieve God’s heart when he sees Christians fighting about whose doctrine is right; he doesn’t see denominations, he sees one big glorious bride. When Christians argue about doctrinal issues, all he sees is carnal people acting like children. All that prideful, controlling religious crap is what drives young people away from churches, and it has to go. Much of the world’s population is under the age of eighteen, and we have to bring the love of Christ to them without all this controlling crap going on. Because, where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

Because it’ll make you smile

ATPM 15.09

After a couple-month hiatus from my usual blog posting announcing publication, I’m pleased to note the September issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure.
After more than twenty years of self-employment, Mark finds himself in the company of, well, a company, and is exasperated by the many instances of “anti-time” he is encountering. Oh, and he misses his Mac. (Who wouldn’t?) Angus performs some fortune-telling as he gazes out over the technology sector.
Back in July, Lee took a 10-day excursion to merry ol’ England. (Technically it was the United Kingdom, as Wales and Scotland were visited too, but “merry ol’ United Kingdom” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.) While on his journey, he chose to forego taking along his trusted MacBook Pro, winging it solely with his jailbroken (ahem) iPhone.
In addition to providing us with his Mac-less trip experience, Lee also shares with readers this month’s desktop pictures. My favorites include Becky Falls, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey 1. Matt showers another array of his new cartoon, Out at Five upon us; I really like “Difficult Printer” and “Get to the point”.
Chris finds a simple and inexpensive iPhone stand, while Linus wonders if Cram is the learning tool it’s cracked up to be. Chris also puts the In Your Face “flexible holder” for one’s iPhone through its paces.
It’s always handy to be able to power up one’s iPhone after a busy day of texting, mapping, web surfing, e-mailing, oh, and using that voice thingy that comes with it. No, not the Skype app. That thing that says Phone. Thus, Lee is pleased he can do so thanks to Griffin’s PowerBlock Reserve. Finally, Ellyn takes control of Safari 4 thanks to, um, Take Control of Safari 4, one of the latest titles from TidBITS Publishing’s Take Control e-book series.
As always, About This Particular Macintosh is available in a variety of formats for your reading enjoyment:
+ Online
+ Offline Webzine
+ Print-optimized PDF
+ Screen-optimized PDF