Pilgrim Notes

Reflections along the way.

Category: Uncategorized (page 7 of 22)

Man is broken

Here’s neat little quote that Jimmy posted on the kidney transplant list:

Man is broken. He lives by mending.
The grace of God is the glue.
Eugene O’Neill

Makes me think of a Dylan tune. I hope we’re all sticky today (and mend everything we touch).

I command all you trees to fly!

Went Christmas tree shopping and the weirdest thing happened!

Peace

Here’s a thoughtful quote by one of my new mentors: Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. I discovered him about two years ago, and the life force that exudes from his speaking (and writing) overwhelms me.

 The world was created peace. But…the act of creating the world is a perpetual act. What we call the creation of the world is not an event of yesterday, but the event of all times, and goes on right under our noses. Every generation has the divine liberty of recreating the world.

Disciplining our Watchful Eye

During Advent, I am focusing on the idea of surprise. And this quote spoke to me about that in some way. Thought someone might enjoy:

“The need for discipline is the same need for watchfulness, for readiness, as in the parable. The ones who wait for the Lord must have oil in their lamps and the lamps must be trimmed. …[Monastic discipline] implies  cultivation of certain inner conditions of awareness, of openness, of readiness for the new and the unexpected.”
Thomas Merton

Bobi Jones

Here is a little poem from one of my favorite Welsh poets, Bobi Jones. Hopefully this will suffice in lieu of a good quote for the day. And I must also offer tribute to Joseph Clancy for the translation (as translation is an integral part of the poetic art).

The Middle Aged Poet

The child has dried up; his play and his sweat have died
His dance has shrivelled, besieged by bloated limbs,
And his leg’s sprightliness has grown bitter. I wonder whether
The muse can restore it in her swaddlings? Yes. Though finger
And thumb and ankle rot, praise will surely escape from their pit
By night, and make metre of the corruption: angels of mirth
Will still chat in the joints of the Poem. I bear within me
The innocents’ cheerful graveyard; an occasional night
Invites the remains of me to creep secretly out
To the early-patterned white leaves, and I dance a cradle’s questions
Through them, rhymes’ curiosity, till the dawn;
Then heavily, stooped, sad, in a magic procession,
Like lamentations that ventured out freely
For a time, they muster back to my silent daily ageing.

Amateur – Lasse Gjertsen

This little sampling duet is cool!

Reminder – Be Careful with WiFi in Public Places

Every so often these warnings come out, and it’s probably worth paying heed. Using WiFi in public places can endanger your computer (especially if you use windows). Internet News reported today that Windows-based computers with wireless capabilities are vulnerable for certain types of exploitation–even if you are not accessing the Internet. So be careful in public places and make sure you’re secure.

Get Your Brian Wilson Doll!

Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Pet Sounds with your very own portable Brian Wilson! Woof! That’s a hoot, and I’m sure a collector’s item. I don’t know if I’m ready for a little Brian Wilson hanging around the house, but I do like his 37 year late album Smile: a true work of genius.

brian-wilson.jpg

Reviewing Flixster

Every week I sign up for a new social networking site just to explore their features and see what’s out there. With so many socialnet sites, I lose track of what I’ve joined, and I usually never do much with many of them. I signed up with Flixster on Wednesday and wasn’t sure if I’d use it much or not. Flixster may turn out to be a useful site. It is definitely like Netflix’s Friends feature combined with MySpace. The nice thing is that users can simply rate movies; they don’t have to sign up for a rental plan. This makes it easy to build a larger friends database and connect with a variety of people who like movies. And for someone like me who prefers to hear movie recommendations from other people, I find this very appealing.

If Netflix was smart, they’d follow Flixster lead and offer an expanded version of the Friends feature with no requirement to join. Of course, once people enter into a network and come to visit their movie page, it would be easier to encourage them to sign up for a plan, download a film or buy a film.

Google Buys YouTube for Data

Why did Google spend over a billion dollars to buy YouTube? To avoid competition with Google Video? To tap into YouTube content? To utilize YouTube technology? It appears Google bought YouTube for the information they could learn about user habits.

Eric Schmidt spoke at the Web 2.0 Conference the other day and he shed light on a little of their strategy. According to Steve Bryant, YouTube’s “huge user base will allow Google’s servers to better understand what users want on the Web.”

“The underlying draw is to see what users are doing and have computers suggest related or adjacent content. It is a whole new paradigm and important to users,” Schmidt said.
So this data from the collective habits of YouTube users will help Google refine their ad-serving engines. And he’s betting that is worth a bunch more.

Interesting.

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