Inedible Ink

Greg’s hair

Originally uploaded by Captoe.

He will have plenty of opportunities in this life for haircuts. In the meantime, there’s the Mohawk.

It’s a great day for folks that like things just the way they are:

Lance still clean:

DNA - Sport - Lance Armstrong exonerated - Daily News & Analysis
Lance Armstrong exonerated
Reuters
Wednesday, May 31, 2006 19:43 IST

AMSTERDAM: Independent investigators have exonerated seven times champion Lance Armstrong of doping during the 1999 Tour de France and found the World Anti-Doping Agency behaved in ways ”completely inconsistent” with testing rules.

Hoffa still missing:

ABC News: FBI Search Ends, Hoffa Mystery Remains
May 31, 2006 — Dozens of FBI agents, anthropologists and archaeologists are gone, and the latest massive search for Jimmy Hoffa’s remains has come up as empty as the giant crater investigators have left behind.

Took the Trek personality test. I’d have preferred Capt. Pike from the 1966 pilot episode, but this will do just fine. Notice that my Ensign Wesley Crusher score is zero.
Your results:
You are Will Riker

At times you are self-centered but you have many friends. The right woman could get you to settle down.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz

Book review of Speed Reading by Tony Buzan: I dunno, it’s all a blur.

Just kidding, it’s not really a blur, it’s really one of the two or three best books on speed reading I’ve ever read.

The sweet spot: If you’re interested in learning to read faster and comprehend more of what you read. If you’re not going to be put off by the guy on the back cover gesturing to his head with the “this is my brain” fingers. Being a mind-mapping geek would really help too. Go get this book, but don’t pay more than 50 cents plus postage.

Normally, the “this is my brain” gesture is one that marks books to avoid. Similarly, cover art that strives to be, but falls short of, “Salvador Dali-esque” usually marks books worthy of skipping.

About speed reading: reading quickly is easier than reading slowly. If you read slower than 500 words per minute, look into going faster.
How to read faster: Your eyes take in detailed information while they are fixed and focused, not while they are moving. It takes time to move your eyes and refocus. Move your focus point less often and take in more words each time you do. You can do this with a little practice.
Once, I watched the eyes of a friend read two pages of a novel. I counted the number of timed her eyes jerked and resettled. It was a painful thing to watch for around six minutes. Then I borrowed her book and counted the words on those two pages, she had moved her eyes more than once per word.

About speed reading books: They’re all about the same. Their contents contain multiple central similarities. They’re all about like learning to golf from a magazine, it will probably help but you have to go and practice. Also, a good deal of the content of a speed reading book is bound to be sample reading material and comprehension tests. The actual how-to that I didn’t already give you for free should fit into a magazine article.

I’m still giving The Evelyn Wood Seven-Day Speed Reading and Learning Program by Stanley Frank as a gift for folks undertaking new courses of study, not the Buzan book.

This ebook on speed reading is free.

Penni asked what’s on my iPod. Ok, so, she didn’t really, she asked everyone. Here it is anyway: (except it’s not exactly my iPod.)
Mars Hill Audio is a Christian CD or cassette format magazine. I’ve asked them to publish in MP3 format or through Audible.com. They’ve started, albeit backwards. These are free MP3 files from Mars Hill. They are called CD bonus tracks, stuff that didn’t make it onto the CD Journal. They mostly stand on their own, but they are companions to the subscriber-only material.
Peter Kreeft, author and lecturer has put 30+ recorded lectures on his site here. Good stuff especially if you’re into C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien.
Dead White Guys wins our prize for coolest name by a defunct (or just resting?) podcast. (feed) (archives) Aquinas, Aristotle, Augustine and probably even some dead guys whose names start with letters other than ‘A’.
National Review Online has a playlist: 50 Rock songs for conservatives.

Not an endorsement list, exactly, but here is a list of podcasts we subscribe to (and have not yet unsubscribed from while cursing the idle chatter of unengaged brains):

Maria Lectrix (feed) (link)
Marketplace Takeout (feed)(link)
Arinze - Podcasting with a Vatican Official (feed)(link)
Catholic Exchange’s Rock Solid (feed)(link)
Vatican Radio - Clips-ENG (feed)(link)
The Word Made Flesh (feed)(link)
The Onion Radio News (feed)(link)
NPR: Satire from The Unger Report (feed)(link)
One Minute Tip - Photoshop Wednesdays (feed)(link) (iPod Videocast)
NPR: Driveway Moments (feed)(link)
Daily Breakfast (feed)(link)
The SaintCast (feed)(link)
Catholic Exchange Today (feed)(link)
Praystation Portable (feed)(link)
Catholic Answers LIVE - This Week (feed)(link)
Verbum Domini (feed)(link)
The Penguin Podcast (feed)(link)
PODRUNNER: Exercise music for runners (feed)(link)
NPR: All Songs Considered (feed)(link)
Cardiovascular Multimedia Information Network (CVMD) - Public Video Podcast (feed)(link)
Podcasts from Johns Hopkins (feed)(link)
Audible Podcast Subscriptions (feed)(link)
Naturesound, Digital recordings of Birds (feed)(link)
On The Wing (feed)(link)
LibriVox Audiobooks (feed)(link)
Sherlock Holmes Podcast (feed)(link)
SherlockHolmesAudio (feed)(link)
Acton Institute Podcast (feed)(link)
The PopSci Podcast From the Moon (feed)(link)

Not enough time for all that? Listen faster with Audacity.
Previous Pod Filler posts here and here

technorati tags: iPod, MP3, podcast

This collage is derived from the IP addresses of everyone who visits it. Click through, and then visit again later to see a changed picture.

Via InfoAesthetics.

I don’t know exactly what someone would mean if they said “Sacred Feminine” to me. No more would I understand “Sacred Masculine”. Sacred means that something is set aside as holy, or venerable as holy. Feminine means of or related to women or girls. So, sacred feminine must mean holy women, Right?
But there’s a book and movie out there that claims that the Catholic Church has a problem with it, whatever it is.

Amazon.com tracks “Statistically Improbable Phrases.” (definition) The list of books that use the phrase “Sacred Feminine” is listed (here).

All that he-man Catholic woman-hating must be in one of these stories:

Luk 10:39 Martha’s sister Mary. Sits at the feet of Jesus.
Jhn 11:21 Lazarus’ sister Martha “If you had been here, he would not have died” Jhn 11:27
(Notice that she is fully expecting that a miracle would have been performed)
Luk 1:43 Zacharias’ wife Elisabeth: “And whence [is] this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Maybe the first person to call Jesus “Lord” while he’s only just been conceived.)
Jhn 8:11 Woman caught in adultery.

Jhn 4:29 Samaritan woman at the well “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” (Another announcement that he is the Messiah, by a Samaritan!)
Jhn 19:25 Three Marys at the foot of the cross.

Jhn 20:15 Mary Magdalene, first at the empty tomb and first to speak to the risen Christ.
Mat 15:22 Canaanite woman. (faithfully expects a miracle.)
Mar 14:8 The unnamed anointer. (anoints his body for burial before he’s even been betrayed, wow.)
Luk 1:38 The Virgin Mary “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” (She looks like the first-ever Christian in that verse, doesn’t she?)
Catholics get grief for holding Mary in “too much” esteem.  Now the trouble is not enough esteem for holy women.  Make up your mind.

Weapons Company crosstrains into functions more relevant to counter insurgency.

From the Daily Reporter of Coldwater MI.:

Soldiers prepare for mission; Lance Cpl. Neusbaum of Coldwater among those training
By Sgt. Robert L. Fisher III-Combat Correspondent
Marines from 81mm Mortar Platoon, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, conducted convoy training in the dry lake bed earlier this month.

There are only seven people on earth who will find this as funny as I did…

The Onion - America’s Finest News Source
Mad Sabermetrician Creates The Perfect Baseball Player’s Statistics

(more…)

We haven’t had a good edible environmental disaster around here since the Chocolate-covered bridge-mix episode of 2004.

No lie:

Fish killed as soft drink leaks from factory | the Daily Mail
But it seems that Sunny D, formerly known as Sunny Delight, is not half as bad for children as it is for fish.

Around 8,000 litres of concentrate used to make the drink leaked into a watercourse on Wednesday morning, turning the river bright yellow.

Dozens of fish were found floating on the surface, poisoned by the lurid mixture.

Hat tip: Xeno at RHOG

In an unrelated fiction… the famed and controversial ‘Geller Preschool for Movers’ nearby the scene of the Sunny D tsunami has been closed indefinitely due to an investigation into an incident in which all the plumbing ran with a gelatinous red substance. “It’s just raspberry Jello.” said a dismissive 3-year-old boy who gave his name as ‘Uri Jr.’ at the scene of the evacuation before being swept away by his teacher, an ex-patriate American named Carrie White. A keyless Miss White locked the doors against the rising tide of Jello and ushered remaining children in a seemingly well-rehearsed evacuation to a hill behind the school parking lot where they would wait for their parents to pick them up.