Halloween

Meeting of the Minds School Culture Walk: Public Speaking Space

Meeting of the Minds School Culture Walk: Public Speaking Space

Digital Life

My Third-Grader has been living in an increasingly-electronic world. She has recently discovered the joys of digital photography (using iPhoto of course) and now she has taken to borrowing my PDA during church so she can write down questions to ask me later. This of course gives me a neat insight into her thinking that I wouldn't have otherwise.

AppleInsider | Apple's Safari 3.1 to support downloadable web fonts, more

AppleInsider | Apple's Safari 3.1 to support downloadable web fonts, moreThis is interesting. I wonder when these specifications will be available in other browsers.

Mature Human Embryos Created From Adult Skin Cells - washingtonpost.com

Mature Human Embryos Created From Adult Skin Cells - washingtonpost.com There are soooo many ethical issues here. The kicker-quote in the article was this:

"Asked what it was like to look at embryos that were replicas of himself, Wood said: 'I have to admit, it's a very strange feeling. It is very difficult to look at an embryo and realize it is what you were a few decades ago. It is you, in a way.'"

It reinforces for me that the knowledge needed to understand humanity in all its dimensions goes far beyond what science can provide. I love science, scientific thinking, scientific knowledge, but it provides only a very narrow slice of the spectrum of knowledge. Apparently, according to this article, it's possible to create copies of yourself and then dispose of them. But is it right? Does it somehow degrade our dignity? What are the long-term effects of such an action? Science can't answer this.

Scientists Build First Man-Made Genome; Synthetic Life Comes Next

Scientists Build First Man-Made Genome; Synthetic Life Comes NextThis, from Wired news, in important.

Video games, stories, and morality

This is a really interesting review of the game Bioshock at Catholic Media Review (found via the Sci-Fi Catholic one of my new favorite blogs. I've never played the game and as the owner of a Mac and a PS2 probably won't anytime soon. What's interesting in the review is the level of moral consequence that seems to be embedded in the storyline of the game, to the point that one's moral decisions during the game determine how the game ends.

Stories are one of-- if not the-- most effective ways to learn about morality and the consequences of our decisions, short of painful first-hand experience. Video games are often touted as a form of immersive storytelling. This review points toward the potential gaming has: to craft a story that allows us to try out-- safely-- the outcomes of different courses of action. I don't think our AI technology is at point where that potential can be reached yet (Bioshock appears to offer only two endings which implies a correspondingly limited range of possible actions) and the kind of game I'm thinking of would require a lot of wisdom to program consequences correctly (and there are certainly different competing worldviews that would look at the same action and propose radically different consequences), but the potential, as I said, is there.

Years from now I suspect people will look at this era of gaming the same way art history looks at the beginnings of the Italian Renaissance, 150 years before the time of da Vinci: amazing for what they did given what they had but possessing just hints of the greatness to come.

High Achiever, Gifted Learner, CreativeThinker

High Achiever, Gifted Learner, CreativeThinker

Very interesting description of the differences between these three types of learners.

Power of the Pens

Power of the Pens

VectorMagic

This is cool. I especially like the effect (seen in the demo images) that results from converting a photograph to a vector image. I need to find a project to use this with. 

VectorMagic | The Online Tool for Precision Bitmap to Vector Conversion : "This site converts bitmap images to vector art - it's an online auto-tracer."

Destiny

The Boy was at the doctor's today. The nurse said to him "I see you've had your 6th birthday recently. The Boy replied "Actually it was my seventh since the day I was born was my first." The nurse turned to my wife and said "I see you have a future engineer." The Boy interjected "Electrical Engineer."

EveTushnet.com

4-year old post worth reading from Eve Tushnet about heroism and the impossibility of "realistic" art. Here's some quotes:

EveTushnet.com: "And I can see what he meant, sort of. I mean, I've never killed an old woman just to find out if God is dead. Similarly, I've never worried that my uncle killed my father because he wanted to marry my mother and become King of Denmark. Similarly, I've never found myself in a dark wood, about the middle point in my life, and been taken through the infernal, purgatorial, and celestial realms by various and sundry guides. You see where I'm going with this, no?"

"Art. Is. Not. Life. It is, when it is doing its job, a selection from life, a snapshot taken with an eye to framing and cropping. What is left out is as significant as what stays in. Art is a high-contrast, sometimes a solarized, photograph of life, not a random Kodak moment. Art uses a language of symbol, allusion, and archetype, in which every red is more crimson than it is in our daily lives, every tree is taller, every wind blows stronger."

Advanced Glow Effects

PSDTuts - Just Great Photoshop Tutorials � Advanced Glow Effects 

This is a fun photoshop tutorial.

Remote Access: Whose Tools? Theirs.

Remote Access: Whose Tools? Theirs.: "WHOSE TOOLS? THEIRS"

YouTube - SIGGRAPH 2007 Computer Animation Festival

YouTube - SIGGRAPH 2007 Computer Animation Festival

YouTube - The Matrix Vs. Carl Sagan

YouTube - The Matrix Vs. Carl Sagan

Agent Smith dubbed over with vocals from Carl Sagan--very funny.

As a side note I remember when Cosmos was broadcast when I was a kid; I watched every episode with my family (thanks Dad!). It filled me with a wonder at the mysteries of the physical universe that I carry with me still. I owe a debt to Mr. Sagan.

IGN: Superman/Green Lantern Interview

IGN: Superman/Green Lantern Interview

Interview with Geoff Johns about the upcoming Superman/Legion of Superheroes story. As a long time fan of both sets of characters I'm looking forward to this. Johns has some good ideas about what lies at the heart of the story he wants to tell.

Harry Potter and the Christian Critics

FIRST THINGS:  Harry Potter and the Christian Critics

A defense of the Harry Potter novels against charges that they are spiritually harmful by Catholic writer (and prominent blogger) Mark Shea. The later portion of the article is a lovely analysis of some of the moral complexities of the book.

One of his points is that Dumbledore is not supposed to be seen as morally infallible, yet I (and I suspect many other readers) find myself predisposed to look for one character who is the moral authority in the book--perhaps I should call it the Gandalf Syndrome-- and Dumbledore is the logical character to fit the bill, which makes some of his actions rather disturbing. Shea points out that Rowlings makes sure that there is plenty of evidence in Book 7 showing that Dumbledore is not the moral center of the universe. One of the things that impressed me about the books was that Rowlings made each of her characters (at least the protagonists) well-rounded: no one was perfect, everyone had flaws, no one was a messiah. But the heroes tried to do the right thing despite their own shortcomings (and sometimes they didn't succeed). 

SitePoint Blogs: CSS Positioning

Nice, quick overview  of the current state of next-gen CSS layout proposals:

SitePoint Blogs: CSS Positioning: Three Specs Better than One?

SitePoint, BTW, is a great resource for all things web-designery. Check out the free sample chapters of the various books when you're there.

A teacher in the computer lab had her students look up various geographic landforms and draw a picture of each one. I was going to point out to her that she could have had them make a slidesshow and just drag the pics they found into the appropriate slides when I realized that the kids were probably learning more by observing the photos and drawing them. Sometimes using technology is NOT an advantage (though technically paper and pencil are technology too, but you know what I mean...).