If you’ve ever looked at a sign, and said, “Well, that’s the crappest kerning job I’ve ever seen,” then I have a game for you.
What’s kerning, you ask? Moving letters around to get the spacing right. And now there’s Kerntype. It’s a game that will test your visual layout skills. Pull the letters around until they look good, and see how your kerning compares to expert opinion.
Get kerning, people. Beat my 98.
We don’t usually get crafty around here, but this is a special case. It seems that moth larvae have been busy in my closet, and the little bastards ate a couple of holes in (among other things) my favourite Merino wool sweater. Here’s their handiwork on Ms Perfect’s sweater.
It took a while to hunt down and kill every last member of their family (except for one, who I commanded to go and tell the others). With that done, the problem was: How to repair the damage? A lot of web pages will get you started on sewing and darning, but I’ve found an easier method that still looks good.
You’re going to need some felting needles. They’re like regular needles, but as you can see in the photo, they have a serrated edge.
You’ll also need a block of foam.
Sometimes craft stores have them, but I got this one from a store that sells foam rubber, like mattresses and such. They usually have a lot of off-cuts for cheap (or even free), and a small cube will do.
I’m going to demonstrate on this wool blanket. That’s a big hole there.
First, put the foam block under the woolen material.
Now, you’ll need the felting needles. Pull the fabric together so that bits on either side of the hole are sort of close to each other. Then, use the needles to pull the individual threads closer to each other, and push the needle into the wool and the foam block. It makes a satisfying scrunching sound.
What you are doing is using the needles to tangle the woolen threads together, and turn them into a lovely snarl that will cover the hole. Keep doing it over and over. Be sure to pull the wool off the foam block every once in a while so the wool doesn’t get stuck to it.
If you keep it up, eventually all that wool will weave together and cover the hole, like this.
With care, it can be done on fabrics of a finer weave. Your strategy here will be to use a finer needle, drag individual fibers together, and scrunch them together to form a mesh. Here’s the sweater from earlier.
Just try to avoid overdoing it — it might take on the appearance of a puff-ball. When you start, try experimenting on some inconspicuous part of the sweater, or on one you don’t care so much about.
Here’s a close-up of the moth-eaten bit from my favourite sweater. It’s very strong, and you can hardly see where the hole was.
I’ve been a Mac guy ever since 1984, which is when my Dad bought a Mac Classic for his office. He thought it was the greatest, and he was right. Man, how many hours I spent at my Dad’s office on that cute little white box! (No hard drive, two disc drives.) I was drawing, writing, pointing, clicking. I was computing, and it was easy and fun. I was hooked.
In the 1990s, I had to confront the strange paradox that puzzled every Mac user: Despite the obvious superiority of the Mac (System 7 at that stage), and its ease of use, PCs still existed. How could this be? Mass delusion? I bored legions of friends with my Mac evangelism… and fretted about Apple’s predicted demise.
Then came the Return of Steve Jobs. He showed us how to turn a company around. And he did it by doing something unexpected — by me at least. While I thought the salvation of the Mac would happen when people saw what great software the OS was, Jobs went at it from the hardware end. He oversaw and (I think it’s fair to say) designed great-looking and great-working products that people couldn’t wait to get their hands on.
Steve Jobs brought us insanely great computers. Computers look and work the way they do today because of choices he made. They have mouses. They have trackpads. (Macs were the first to have them.) They have sophisticated font capabilities because Steve loved typography (like I do).
I love my Mac, and my iPod. I use them both every day. (No iPhone yet.) I love what these smart little things bring to my life. I hope Apple keeps making great things, now that Steve Jobs is gone. I feel like we all owe him a lot for what he brought to computing.
In a discussion with Sam Harris, Steven Pinker presents a cogent take-down of the “HitlerStalinPolPot” gambit that some Christians like to play. That’s the one where they say, “Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were atheists who killed millions of people, therefore atheism is terrible.”
Harris serves the ball.
Need I remind you that the “atheist regimes” of the 20th century killed tens of millions of people?
This is a popular argument among theoconservatives and critics of the new atheism, but for many reasons it is historically inaccurate.
First, the premise that Nazism and Communism were “atheist” ideologies makes sense only within a religiocentric worldview that divides political systems into those that are based on Judaeo-Christian ideology and those that are not. In fact, 20th-century totalitarian movements were no more defined by a rejection of Judaeo-Christianity than they were defined by a rejection of astrology, alchemy, Confucianism, Scientology, or any of hundreds of other belief systems. They were based on the ideas of Hitler and Marx, not David Hume and Bertrand Russell, and the horrors they inflicted are no more a vindication of Judeao-Christianity than they are of astrology or alchemy or Scientology.
Second, Nazism and Fascism were not atheistic in the first place. Hitler thought he was carrying out a divine plan. Nazism received extensive support from many German churches, and no opposition from the Vatican. Fascism happily coexisted with Catholicism in Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Croatia.
…
When it comes to the history of violence, the significant distinction is not one between theistic and atheistic regimes. It’s the one between regimes that were based on demonizing, utopian ideologies (including Marxism, Nazism, and militant religions) and secular liberal democracies that are based on the ideal of human rights.
Not that Sam Harris hasn’t also done a fine job of answering that question himself.
…the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors.
— Doctrine & Covenants 110:16
Religious movements of the 1800s just couldn’t wait for Jesus to come back, and Mormonism was very much a product of its time. Did Joseph Smith make a firm prediction about it, or did he not? I guess when the name of your church includes “Latter-day Saints”, you’re expecting it to be pretty soon.
Accordingly, every single youth leader I ever had was utterly convinced that our generation was going to usher in Christ’s return. There were breathless reports of patriarchal blessings that said, “Yep, you’ll be alive for the whole wrapping up.”
Well, apparently the return is on the back burner for now.
The end is not near, senior LDS apostle Boyd K. Packer said Saturday.
Today’s youths can look forward to “getting married, having a family, seeing your children and grandchildren, maybe even great-grandchildren,” Packer told more than 20,000 Mormons gathered in the giant LDS Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City.
There has been no immediate comment from LDSLastDays.com.
I would, however, like to suggest a slight change of logo:
The novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a scene where Arthur Dent goes to a hyperspatial factory where planets are constructed. It made me wonder: What if I were in a spaceship inside that enormous sphere — and I fell out of the ship?
In other words, what would gravity be like inside an enormous, hollow, planet-sized sphere?
Would you:
a) get pulled to the precise centre of the sphere, and stay there?
b) get pulled toward the nearest section of wall, and go splat?
c) just float around wherever you are?
I was very pleased to find that last week’s Straight Dope column answered that very question.
Make your prediction, and I’ll see you in comments.
Congratulations, everyone who accepted the challenge! I hope you had a good experience.
As for me, I found my blog revitalised, and it was very gratifying to see more visitors and a higher density of great comments.
It wasn’t hard — I go through the news every day anyway, and it was easy to pick the story that I found the most interesting. In fact, some days it was hard to pick just one. The more I looked, the more I found. It’s hard to believe I had such big breaks between posts just a few months ago. I would notice things, but I wouldn’t post them because I felt like every post had to be such a big deal. Not anymore!
I think I’m going to try to keep up this pace. I actually enjoyed the kind of posts that I found myself writing.
No question, Jehovah’s Witnesses play hardball with their ex-members. Ostracism of unbelievers (even if they’re family members) is not just a common practice; it’s official.
As if that weren’t enough, now there’s more. The July 2011 issue of the Watchtower (PDF) describes apostates as “mentally diseased”.
Suppose that a doctor told you to avoid contact with someone who is infected with a contagious, deadly disease. You would know what the doctor means, and you would strictly heed his warning. Well, apostates are “mentally diseased,” and they seek to infect others with their disloyal teachings. (1 Tim. 6:3, 4) Jehovah, the Great Physician, tells us to avoid contact with them. We know what he means, but are we determined to heed his warning in all respects?
Not everyone is happy with this assessment.
“Many like me remain associated with the Witnesses out of fear of being uncovered as an ‘apostate’ and ousted, not just from the organisation, but from their own friends and families,” said the man, who would only give the name John. “I find I am now branded as ‘mentally diseased’ – giving any who discover my true beliefs free licence to treat me with disdain.”
Yep, that shit’s hardcore. But what’s that little Bible verse tucked away in there? Could it be that the Witnesses are simply quoting the Bible, and that’s what describes people as “mentally diseased”?
Off to check 1 Timothy 6:3–4 (KJV).
6:3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;
6:4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,
The key word here is “doting”, which now means “to be fond of”, but which in King James’ time meant “to be feeble-minded from age“, which is why we speak of an elderly person being “in their dotage”.
But of course, the Witnesses use their own New World Translation. What does it say?
3 If any man teaches other doctrine and does not assent to healthful words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, nor to the teaching that accords with godly devotion, 4 he is puffed up [with pride], not understanding anything, but being mentally diseased over questionings and debates about words. From these things spring envy, strife, abusive speeches, wicked suspicions,
There it is. It still seems a bit harsh, but at least it’s not just the Witnesses being shitty to people — it’s the Bible being shitty to people. So now the question becomes: Is the JW translation of that verse a good one, or not? We’re going to have to take it to the Greek.
I don’t speak Greek, but fortunately people have made some good resources for Bible nerds. Here’s the relevant verse (PDF).
The key word is ‘νοσέω’ (here ‘νοσων’, or ‘noson’ in Roman letters). It only occurs once in the New Testament. So what’s it mean? Off to Strong’s.
1) to be sick
2) metaph. of any ailment of the mind
a) to be taken with such an interest in a thing as amounts to a disease, to have a morbid fondness for
Well, that’s kind of ambiguous. And herein lies the problem. If you wanted to go for the “mentally diseased” view, you’d certainly have a case. If, however, you wanted to soft-pedal it, you could try a more metaphorical translation like “unhealthily obsessed with questionings” or “morbidly interested in questionings”. Both readings are possible, depending on how much you like apostates, which if you’re Paul, isn’t much.
Still: Wasn’t Paul a shit? Imagine describing an ex-member of your church as someone with a mental illness. That’s just piling on. And even the “nice” version isn’t that nice. How accurate is that, describing someone who’s left the church as unhealthily obsessed with the church, or having a morbid interest in it, not able to stop talking about it, writing… erm.
Well.
Occasionally I talk to people who identify as Christians, and they’re into God and Jesus and all that, but they somewhat paradoxically claim that they’re not “in a religion”. What’s with that?
Somehow, it doesn’t clear things up when I explain that God and Jesus are religious beliefs, so they’re in a religion, sure enough. No, they say, it’s a relationship.
Can you have a “relationship” with someone who isn’t a real person? Then I remembered objectophiles. Some people fall in love with objects, as did Erika Eiffel, who fell in love with (and married) the Eiffel Tower. Before that, she was in love with a crossbow. Other objectophiles have formed attachments to rollercoasters, videogame characters, and public buildings. Their attachment seems visceral and very real. You kind of have to stand in awe of the variability of human sexuality.
And yet, the object of affection is not a sentient being. The relationship is all in the lover’s head. And:
Interestingly, Objectum Sexuals – they call themselves OS people – believe their love with the objects are reciprocal and that they can telepathically communicate with them.
Sound familiar? Some women think they’re marrying public landmarks. Some think they’re marrying Jesus. Similar delusion.
I always wondered if perhaps one of the cast members of the Broadway hit The Book of Mormon might be an ex-LDS-missionary in real life. And one is. Ain’t it funny how life works out? You must admit, it would give an actor a special kind of qualification for the part.
Enter me (from stage right): an ex-missionary, now ex-Mormon and a gay to boot (A triple threat?). But for me, being a Latter-Day Saint meant a lot more than donning a white shirt, dark pants, a tie, and a slick black name tag bearing the title of Elder—it was my life. My entire life.
He describes his mission experience as quite positive — good for him — but he loses me at the end.
But beyond being a preparatory experience, my mission and my time as a Mormon overall were very rich and special to me. I used to think that this was because of the system of beliefs themselves: that without the church I would feel sad, lost and broken. Since leaving the church I have realized that what was so beneficial and sacred about the religion in my life was not what I had faith in specifically, but rather the having of the faith.
As The Book of Mormon’s Elder Cunningham accidentally discovers, it doesn’t matter what people believe in if what they believe has the ability to unite them and inspire them to serve one another and love each other freely. Their beliefs can be silly—absurd, even—but that doesn’t matter. It’s the believing that counts.
This is, perhaps not coincidentally, the central conceit of The Book of Mormon; that belief in something, even if it’s entirely made-up, can still be good because of its power to create social unity. The problem here is that, while religion does a lot to build unity within the group, it builds walls and creates intractable conflict between people of different faiths. I bet anyone could think of about 4 or 5 examples without trying too hard.
There’s the epistemological side, too: Believing in something (which is likely to be wrong) is worse than believing in nothing. When you believe in nothing, you may at least be open to learning something. But when you believe in something wrong, you think you’re right, and it’s very difficult to shift. Bad information is worse than no information. Faith actually blocks understanding.
I still love the show. Well, I haven’t actually seen the show, so I’m basing this only on the soundtrack and things I’ve read. I’d like to return to this idea when I manage to get to the USA and actually see it, which I am currently planning to do.
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