Monday, March 31, 2008

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Fake it 'til you make it

New to my collection of FITYMIs from Rebecca of Sunny Brook Farm:
you may understand how the adoption of the outward and visible sign has some strange influence in developing the inward and spiritual state of which it is the expression.

From here

Later:


The first, on an individual level, is as a kind of cognitive therapy or as a way of generating rules of conduct: if you believe certain propositions, or try to make yourself believe them, the world becomes more tolerable and your behaviour better adapted to it. This need not be because they are simply grand untruths. It might be because they are needed to balance other grand untruths generated by default by other bits of my mind.

Later:

..., I knew on one level that my fears were ridiculous, and that there are in fact no lions on Swiss alps, no wolf-packs in the lake district and no giant carnivorous elk anywhere. But the only thing that made them go away was to behave as if I were not frightened and to summon up images of my spiritual self as a larger, more dangerous beast than anything to be found around me. Propositional truth did nothing for my fears. Propositional falsehood worked.

Acid, quenelles, teleology
Andrew Brown (again)

or

Fake it 'til you make it

or

Perform the acts of faith and faith will come

Loyola, Exercises (1548)
From Dawn to Decadence page 39

Assume a virtue, if you have it not,... For use can almost change the stamp of nature

Hamlet to his mother (1602)

So with faith, if it does not lead to action, it is in itself a lifeless thing.

James 2:17

we need only in cold blood ACT as if the thing in question were real, and keep acting as if it were real, and it infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real

William James
Principals of Psychology Chapter 21 (1890)

Helen blushed, and Sister Teresa seemed to read her thoughts. "In the beginning, we all feel a bit like imposters in our capes and veils and being called 'Sister.' But don't worry about it - just act like you think a nun should when you're not sure what to do, and you'll find that through grace and love, you become one."

Lying Awake
Mark Salzman p83

Brain scientist also tell us what we�ve always known, that practice makes perfect. Repetition of an action actually strengthens neural pathways, which James Austin calls, �long-term potentiation.�[40]

Wesley vs. the God Module:
Can Wesley Help a Nonreductive Physicalist Post-Modern Theology of Religious Experience?

Cliff Guthrie

I see that I found several of these here (pdf).

10/24/04 - Lot's of good stuff in Remembering the Future, Imagining the Past: Story, Ritual, and the Human Brain by David Hogue. There's even an index entry for "living as if".

Friday, March 28, 2008

Fwd: Weekly e-mail from St. John's

This is a test

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michele Daley <saints315@verizon.net>
Date: Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Subject: Weekly e-mail from St. John's
To: saints315@verizon.net


March 27, 2008

ST. JOHN'S EVENTS & NEWS

This Sunday March 30th – Holy Eucharist: 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Lectionary readings: Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31.

Sundays in April, Holy Eucharist:– 8:00 and 10:00.

Church Office Hours: Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, 8:30-2:30.

Downeast Transportation offers YEAR ROUND public bus transportation around SWH and one or two stops in Bass Harbor on Wednesday (only) for $1.00.  All buses are accessible with wheel chair lifts.  Trips to and from  Ridge Apt, the library, SWH medical center, Kozy Kove, Norwood Cove apt., the Food Mart, Double J, Bass Harbor post office, Birchwood Apt. etc. can be made (on Wednesday) without a car.  Downeast Transportation also offers trips to and from Bar Harbor to Ellsworth and Bangor EVERY Monday and Friday (year round).  The cost is $9.00 round trip. Downeast Transportation buses are available to ALL of us--They are not just for the elderly or those living in housing. They also have schedules that could be handed out at the food pantry.  (A schedule is currently posted on the bulletin board in the undercroft)

Come Home for Supper on Friday, April 4! If you're willing to be a host (a very easy and lovely opportunity) please contact Barnes...244-7985, Bromage...244-3227, or Craig....244-5267, and remember to sign up this Sunday, March 30th, so the committee can plan for this always enjoyable evening.

The Best Ever Spaghetti Dinner, held at the S.W. Harbor Congregational Church on the High Road, will benefit the Westside Food Pantry and will be on Saturday, April 5th from 4:30-7:00p.m.  The cost is $5.00 for adults; $3.00 for children 12 and older and no more than $15.00 for a family.  Children under 12 are free!

Tired of the same old faces at church?  Invite a friend!  Invite a neighbor!  Welcome a stranger!  

Between the Services:

Dear SJ Member, In response to my recent note regarding our Sunday Forum, I have had several good replies with useful comments and suggestions.  If you have not weighed in with your views/wishes, please do so at william.baker@umit.maine.edu

 

This Sunday, March 30, Jean Rohrer and Mary Mitchell will present "Medical Missions in Ecuador," based on their recent work there.   

For the month of April, the following schedule has nicely taken shape:

April 6:  Bible Study: "St. Luke: The Gospel for All People"   (Please read afresh     the entire Gospel of Luke by April 6.)

April 13: Mary Anna Fox, "Compassion International: Ministering to Children in the Dominican Republic."  Ms. Fox is a member of the Southwest Harbor Congregational Church.

April 20:  Mary and Jim Vekasi, "'Create in Me a Clean Spirit': Non-Violent Communication." 

April 27:  Joan Grant, "Spiritual Hospitality: A Seal Cove Retreat and Training Center for the Spiritual Life."

Please join us in the undercroft at 9-10 a.m. each Sunday. 

Yours, Bill Baker


Why Google Sites & Blogger over proprietary system?

  • Goals?
    • Who updates?
  • Email posts to blogger.com
  • Categorize posts via tags
  • Relatively infinite design, programming and hosting resources
  • Easier to maintain (?)
  • I don't like the way the proprietary system paints the page with every link.
  • The proprietary sites I've seen are very rough.
  • How many people in the proprietary organization?
  • If the proprietary organization doesn't work out, we can't can't someone else to work on the site for us because it's a proprietary system. We'd have to rebuild the site.
  • Here are a couple sites:
  • Example
  • The pages are slow to load.
  • Caveats:
    • I am not a designer
    • I am not a copy writer
    • I understand function
  • Spencer suggested that we look at the Acadia Senior College web site here.
  • Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design
    • Service times should be first and formost - that's mostly what people want to see
    • No fluff language.
  • Money

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

MaineCat - The recording of Library of Congress bibliographical data in machine form

MaineCat:
"Author Buckland, Lawrence F
Title The recording of Library of Congress bibliographical data in machine form; a report prepared for the Council on Library Resources, inc
Publisher Washington, Council on Library Resources, 1965

HOLDINGS FOR Maine Info Net CENTRAL DATABASE
REQUEST THIS ITEM
Library Shelving Location Electronic Link Call Number and Serial Holdings Request Status
Univ of Maine ORO Annex 029.7 B856 DUE 04-24-08

Edition Rev., February 1965
Phys descr x, 54 p. 22 cm
Subject Cataloging
Data tapes
Information storage and retrieval systems
Automatic Data Processing
Alt author Council on Library Resources"

I like this item.
  • It predates MARC and the September 1966 Scientific American example.
  • You can see element that became part of MARC.
  • The internal formats they came up with are reflected in the MARC binary format.
  • It includes verbal descriptions of the programs that translate an entry into printed output. The elements of XSLT and XSLT-FO are there.
  • Henriette Avram is nowhere to be seen in the document.
  • The main example card is about a JFK education speech (?). The publication date is November 23, 1964.

IT Conversations | O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference | Alex Russell

IT Conversations | O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference | Alex Russell:

"Alex Russel, creator of the Dojo web toolkit, discusses the future of mobile phone development based on his experience in the mobile, security, and web development industries. He claims that although smart phones are increasing in power, they will not be a suitable platform for open source development. That, and restrictions by handset makers and network operators, mean that the web is the only viable platform for developing mobile phone applications in the future."


I'm pretty sure Alex refers to the lack of "thingification" as one of the the problem with the mobile network. Does that bascially mean the ability to attach a url to something and pass it around? I also missed other, possibly important terms. It's worth listening to again.



I think this a different sense of thingification that commonly used.

Critiquing Hugo

I'm saddened and sometimes amazed of the vehemence and pervasiveness of critiques of Hugo Chavez and the socio-political experiment going on in the relatively democratic Venezuela as compared with governments with whom the United States is, if not friendly, at least tightly allied, say Saudi Arabia or say, Nigeria. Avowedly unbiased NPR is not exempt. A case in point: the interview a few months ago with Joe Kennedy and his work with the Venezuelan government to bring less expensive fuel oil to low income people in the northeastern United States. Joe would point out the relative levels of democracy between Venezuela and most other major oil producing states, but the interviewer wouldn't hear it and kept insisting, well, I ought really go find the interview and reference it.



In any case, again, what's the real issue? Actually using Venezuela's oil wealth to benefit poor people?



Self critique: Is this really the same as the failure of American leftist to give up on Stalin as the reality of his rule became known? I hope not. I don't think so. I think the Venezuelan rich have not been had their wealth stripped or been imprisoned simply because of their wealth.

Red vs. Underlieing (sp?) Culture

The current state of Russia illustrates my long time assertion, which I think predated the fall of the wall, that what we claimed to object to in the Soviet Union were at least as much Russian characteristics as Communist characteristics. This leads me to the conclusion that what they (? - conservatives? Protestants?) was the government helping out either poor people or just people different than the speaker. They tended not to object to the government helping them out, be they defense contractors or farmers or their particular flavor of worship.

(That's underlieing not underlining

Lists vs. Prose

5/11/08 Update: Wikipedia:Embedded list

Recently I came across a Wikipedia article in which there was a style notice suggesting that the page ought to be rewritten as prose as opposed to the list that it was. I've not been able to re-find it, but I'd like to see their reasoning on the issue since I'm much inclined to make lists and outlines of my ideas instead of prose and don't particularly see why it ought to be prose. On the other hand, I admire well written non-fiction prose, say John McPhee or Richard.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Rules for a Dictionary Catalog By Charles Ammi Cutter, Worthington Chauncey Ford, Philip Lee Phillips, Oscar George Theodore Sonneck

Rules for a Dictionary Catalog By Charles Ammi Cutter, Worthington Chauncey Ford, Philip Lee Phillips, Oscar George Theodore Sonneck: "1 To enable a person to find a book of which either A the author B the title V is known c the subject J 2 To show what the library has D by a given author E on a given subject F in a given kind of literature 3 To assist in the choice of a book G as to its edition bibliographically H as to its character literary or topical MEANS 1 Author entry with the necessary references for A and D 2 Title entry or title reference for B 3 Subject entry cross references and classed subject table for o and E 4 Form entry and language entry for F 5 Giving edition and imprint with notes when necessary for G 6 Notes for H REASONS FOR CHOICE Among the several possible methods of attaining the OBJECTS other things being equal choose that entry 1 That will probably be first looked under by the class of people who use the library 2 That is con"

What I Like About Marc

  • It's the earliest rich data format that I know of.
  • It demonstrates lots of the data encoding techniques of its day. It may have invented some of them
  • I see a forerunner in the card examples in Scientific Amerrican.
  • It and the metadata it embodies is going forward into the future as part of the semantic web.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

This is a test of blogging from Opera Mini.

And now I edit.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Rules for a Dictionary Catalog By Charles Ammi Cutter, Worthington Chauncey Ford, Philip Lee Phillips, Oscar George Theodore Sonneck

Rules for a Dictionary Catalog By Charles Ammi Cutter, Worthington Chauncey Ford, Philip Lee Phillips, Oscar George Theodore Sonneck: "1 To enable a person to find a book of which either A the author B the title V is known c the subject J 2 To show what the library has D by a given author E on a given subject F in a given kind of literature 3 To assist in the choice of a book G as to its edition bibliographically H as to its character literary or topical"

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Things Joseph has figured out

  • "Moma car": Amy's van
  • "Nana car": the Maxima
  • "Bop car": the Taurus
Evidenced during a surprise visit today.

Monday, March 17, 2008

iPhone not having copy & paste is bad

According to Jakob Nielson the iPhone doesn't have copy & paste. This is bad. For me, at least, copy and paste is a major mechanism for exploring the internet.
  • copy a word or phrase and paste it into Google - does the iPhone have a "highlight and search" mechanism?
  • copy a url and then paste it into the browser address bar and hack it
  • copy a snippet from a page I'm tagging and paste it into the comment
By not having this mechanism my universe is made much smaller to no benefit for me that I can think of.

http://del.icio.us/ttotdpost updater

For now I'm giving up on updating http://mshook.googlepages.com/ttotd2delicious02.html to use http://textingtermoftheday.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=json-in-script&callback=processFeed instead of http://www.google.com/reader/public/javascript/feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/TTOTD?n=3&callback=getPosts as its source. I want to because I think that the blogspot JSON feed may update sooner than the reader feed.
  • supplant only works with the top level items in an object.
  • I'm afraid that jsont.js may have trouble with $t as the name in an object and it's too convoluted for me to try and debug right now if it does.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Hey Mister - You've got a banana in your ear!

I was walking along one day and I noticed up ahead this guy who had a banana in his ear. So I said, "Hey Mister - You've got a banana in your ear." He kept walking, so I said a little louder, "Hey Mister - You've got a banana in your ear." He just kept walking, so I called out as loud as I could, "Hey Mister! You've got a banana in your ear!" Still, he just kept walking. So I ran up ahead of him and turned around and put up my hands so he would stop and shouted as loud as I could, "HEY MISTER! YOU'VE GOT A BANANA IN YOUR EAR!" He stopped and looked at me and said, "Sorry, I can't hear you sonny, I've got a banana in my ear."

I remember that joke from my childhood (that's in the 1950's - way before Bert and Ernie did it) and my Mom laughed every time she heard it.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Fwd: "jojoba" - Word of the Day from the OED

This is a text to see how the fancy typography survives the trip to a blog and how it does in the Atom feed.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <oedwotd@oup.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 9:30 PM
Subject: "jojoba" - Word of the Day from the OED
To: OEDWOTD-AMER-L@webber.uk.oup.com


OED Online Word of the Day

An unsurpassed guide to the meaning and history of millions of words, both present and past, the Oxford English Dictionary Online is the most powerful online lexical resource on the Internet! Subscribe today for only $29.95 a month, and you can have access to the "greatest work in dictionary making ever undertaken." – The New York Times


jojoba, n.

ADDITIONS SERIES 1997
Bot.

(h{schwa}{sm}h{schwa}{shtu}b{schwa}) Formerly also jajoba, jojobe, jojove. [a. Sp. jojoba, ad. native Indian hohohwi.]

a. A desert shrub, Simmondsia chinensis (family Simmondsiaceae), native to northern Mexico and the south-western U.S., that is used for the oil it yields. Also, = *jojoba oil below.

1900 E. J. WICKSON California Fruits (ed. 3) 43 The 'jajoba' (Simmondsia californica) is a low shrub, the fresh fruits of which..are eaten like almonds. 1933 Bot. Gaz. LXXXXIV. 826 Simmondsia californica, commonly known in the southwest as 'jojobe' or 'jojove', is an evergreen shrub. 1958 Econ. Bot. XII. 261 Jojoba, the gray box bush, is a drought-resistant, long-lived, evergreen, desert shrub bearing fruit like an acorn set in sepals. 1983 Houston (Texas) Chron. 21 Aug. I. 19/5 The August harvest of jojoba looks good so far, raising the spirits of manufacturers of just about everything from food to floor wax. 1989 Times 31 Aug. 25/6 Jojoba is hardly absorbed in the gut{em}an attractive feature if you are trying to make low-calorie foods. 1989 Sunday Tel. 10 Dec. 43/4 Brown paper wrapped grapefruit and jojoba soap, £2.25.

b. jojoba oil, oil extracted from the fruit of the jojoba, used in cosmetics and as a substitute for sperm oil.

1975 Nature 22 May 272/3 Chemical analysis of jojoba oil has confirmed that it is strikingly similar in composition to sperm oil. 1986 Look Now Oct. 68/2 The Renewer Lotion contains collagen, jojoba oil and a special firming ingredient to smooth and soften the skin.

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Saturday, March 08, 2008

Images in Google Docs & Notebook

  • In Google Docs, when you insert an image into a document, you can choose to have the image data actually included in the document.
  • In Google Notebook, when you clip an image, it puts a pointer to the image in the notebook, not the image.
  • If you export the notebook to the Google Doc, it will still be a pointer.
So, if you clip an image on localhost, you'll only be able to see the image if you're on that machine.