"I have just witnessed a rout – tonight’s Intelligence Squared debate. It considered the motion “The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world”. Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry, opposing the motion, comprehensively trounced Archbishop Onaiyekan (of Abuja, Nigeria) and Ann Widdecombe, who spoke for it. The archbishop in particular was hopeless."
- Christopher A Carr
from Bookmarklet
"It was a gripping evening’s entertainment but a little discouraging for those of us who are Catholics. I found myself wishing, one, that the Catholic debaters would for once not content themselves with offering pettifogging excuses but instead actually own up to some of the charges, and, two, I wished that there still existed a great Catholic apologist like Chesterton or Belloc,...
more...
- Christopher A Carr
Sounds good, but I can't seem to find a video.
- Tanath
Toward the end of the article, the author (Andrew M. Brown) says that the Catholic side would have put up much more of a fight had it put up the equivalent of early 20th-century pro-Catholic debaters G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. But even then, Hitchens would probably have outdebated them. Certainly H.G. Wells defeated Belloc in a "debate" in print when he answered Belloc's "Mr. Wells' Outline of History" (which argued against the theory of evolution) with his crushing retort, "Mr. Belloc Objects".
- Dennis Jernberg
I'm at a loss to understand why Onaiyekan and Widdecombe thought this debate a good idea.
- Christopher A Carr
"Just before her sixth birthday, Elena Desserich (right) was diagnosed with brain cancer and given 135 days to live. She lived 255 days, passing away in 2007. After her death, Elena’s parents, Brooke and Keith, found hundreds of notes from Elena hidden around the house — in between CD cases, between bookshelves, in dresser drawers, in backpacks…."
- AJ Kohn
from Bookmarklet
Wow... that's cute and incredibly heavy all at the same time.
- SAM
It is so sad and heartwarming at the same time. Can't fathom what she must have gone through doing this and what her parents are going through finding the notes.
- jamar78
how her parents could come to terms with this; don't know what this feeling is called
- ffcode
It's fake. 255 days later they find all this stuff? I call bullshit. And using your dead kid to sell books is pretty low.
- KapitanObvious
It's a book to raise funds for a non-profit org. dedicated to fighting pediatric brain cancer. It's not as if they're taking the funds and vacationing in Hawaii.
- pea ♥ fierce as a woozle
Still sounds fake. Too many holes. Sorry.
- KapitanObvious
Story breaks my heart but as others have pointed out on other sites, it does seem a little fishy that nothing was noticed for a whole 255 days later.
- Andrew Trinh
I would imagine that for the 255 days the little girl lived, her parents were totally focused on giving her quality of life, not really noticing much of anything else. After she's gone, part of the recovery process for the parents is to re-organise the home, whereupon they start to discover these things. Or perhaps they found one note in a semi-obvious place and decided to investigate....
more...
- Slippy "Threadsbane" Lane
Aww that is so sweet. Poor girl had to go soon :(
- AJ Batac
"That’s why in most cases it’s where simple, intuitive and conventional solutions are usually the best option. However, it doesn’t mean that they need to be boring. One year ago we’ve presented modern approaches of navigation design. Let’s take a look at what’s different now, which trends one can observe and what ideas you can develop further in your projects."
- AJ Kohn
from Bookmarklet
@nakachi it would've been better if she hadn't moved as i took it. ;( also, Achilles is my friend's dog.
- Carlos Ayala
LOVE. You know, if you ever need a little break, you should feel free to send Isabella up to Va. I promise to send her back.
- pea ♥ fierce as a woozle
careful what you wish for pea, we may never see you again!
- Carlos Ayala
you keep warning me but I gotta tell you, I've taken on some seriously challenging kids and survived to tell the tales so, bring it on. i ain't scared! ;D
- pea ♥ fierce as a woozle
pfft. has she ever broken into anyone's home? broken some stranger's sunroof? gone to bed with every knife in the house under her pillows because she's a ninja? shoplifted when she was 3? :D i got this.
- pea ♥ fierce as a woozle
give her time. she is only two and is currently only throwing forks and knives at her mother while saying "shit" 'cuz she missed. but when she connects she reaches out to dad for a high five. trust me, there is much evil brewing within this one. the force is definitely strong with her.
- Carlos Ayala
lmao @ reaches out to dad for a high five.
- nakachi
Great pics. I wonder if Cletus will ever calm down enough for stuff like that.
- Matt Hilton
What an adorable pair. I just can't take the cuteness + her awesome shirt. <3
- Carmen
Bu çalışmanın neden ve kim tarafından yapıldığını öğrenebileceğimiz bir link olsaymış.
- Can Eğridere "Jegraphy"
merak ne güzel şey, güzel şey merak ;) MAC'in makyözlerinden biri yapmış..Maalesef kendisini yaptığı şeyden daha değerli bulup belirtmemişler ismini.
- Tugce Cengiz
Great shots! Is this the current Hour or one from awhile back?
- Louis Simoneau
It's been said that the clothes make the man, but a woman needs makeup too... ;)
- Dennis Jernberg
June 2008... when things went ka-boom... I had a play in the Fringe that year, and Jamie O'Meara liked these shots. Boom! Cover.
- T. Brent, technopeasant
I regret that I don't live close enough to you to see those performances, Brent.
- Spidra Webster
@Spidra... thank you! i have been known to travel. where do you live?
- T. Brent, technopeasant
@nakachi thank you! that was a delicious time in my life... feeling more like a bowl of oatmeal these days lol
- T. Brent, technopeasant
I live in the SF Bay Area right now, but can't afford to anymore. As soon as the house sale goes through, I'll be moving to LA (shamefully enough...moving back in with my parents). The bright side is there are more FF meetups in LA...
- Spidra Webster
i've noticed! hope things work out for you... and i hope to get to LA at some point. :)
- T. Brent, technopeasant
I've been fascinated with sunroofs since I was a little kid (cause my parents always bought cars that never had them). This one is technically impressive; love the integration into the rear and how it segues into the rear of the car. Someday, Derrick. Someday.
- Derrick
@Derrick +100 (I Can Haz - Well I can Dreamz)
- Lynne d Johnson
Yeah, so totally saw a new Carrera today. Wasn't a Targa, but the tres cool LED lights beneath the headlamps gave it away as a 2009. I was more excited about seeing the car than meeting Zach Snyder last week. DAMN YOU SEXY PORSCHES.
- Derrick
nice. wouldn't turn it down if given to me... but I'm a Mercedes man...
- T. Brent, technopeasant
How do you like those Mercedes SUV's Brent?
- Amani
I used to really like Mercedes. I think they've turned into German Buicks, though. But the first 500E Hammer? Wow, I fell in love with cars when that was released in what, 1986?
- Derrick
"Valerie Jarrett announced the other day that “we’re going to speak truth to power.” Who’s Valerie Jarrett? She’s “Senior Advisor” to the president of the United States — i.e., the leader of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth. You would think the most powerful man in the most powerful nation would find a hard job finding anyone on the planet to “speak truth to power” to."
- Alex Scrivener
Mark doesn't realize something Valerie does. Her and their power is derived from one source, and she was talking about that source when she said that.
- Anthony Citrano
"When the cake emerged from the oven, the top was puffed and golden. A few minutes later, it had darkened into a buttery, crackling crust. The cake itself resembled the center of a pecan pie; it was very sweet, but not tooth-achingly so, and it went down all too easily with a cold glass of milk."
- Derrick
from Bookmarklet
I will never understand how a crappy format like PDF became so damn universal. I understand why it would be great in design or layout work, but why must price quotes and tech documentation be distributed in such a slow to open, intentionally-hard-to-work-with format?
Still, I think my point stands. This is a format where the layout is preserved at all cost. Most documentation has content which is more important than the layout. Rich Text, or even DOC files, allow some formatting, but make the content easily usable.
- Alex Scrivener
Also, if PDF is an "Open" format, why does the only decent editor cost $400 bucks? Huh?!
- Alex Scrivener
Alex, I guess because Adobe invented it. I just use Print to PDF on a Mac to create a PDF, which works with any application.
- Cristo
Sweet merciful maker, I don't want to MAKE the damn things! They are the bane of my existence. I want to know why everyone else is making them? Why is a price quote from CDW generated as a PDF, which I can't edit, instead of a text format, or even a CSV? I want access to my data!
- Alex Scrivener
I dunno about the tech side of things (I'm sure there's meta-data and other unseen indicators in a document that will tell you if it was edited at some point), but if I'm sending a price quote that might be legally construed as an offer and which might bind me in a contract if accepted, I'm gonna want to send it in a format that can't be easily edited by the offeree.
- Brian Chang
That's the main reason why I use it at work sometimes. It's not so easily editable.
- Rodfather
Other than web formats, there aren't too many options for reasonably open standards for rich document sharing. Plus, you get guaranteed ability for WYSIWYG display & print, and have options for protecting docs from editing. RTF? ODF? Certainly not MS formats. PDF is an output format, not a creation format. That said, I much prefer plain text. Use richer formats only when necessary, and in email put text inline not as an attachment.
- LogEx
I have become a PDF-aholic after having a major mobile carrier rip off our order form (created in Word). They just swapped out our logo for theirs, but left our address in the footer. Losers.
- Anika
The XPS spec is 476 pages :( (and is a format in search of a need)
- LogEx
Can't really be matched on fillable forms, when you don't have the resources allocated to your department to develop a web-based form and automatic database importing. Nice document locking (or at the very least making tampering obvious) abilities. You can be sure the document you sent out to the client to be signed are the same ones they return signed (with watermarking/etc.) and aren't changing the language to match what they wanted.
- Matthew DeVries
As much as I trash Flash, I think PDF is a very useful construct (but it's not intended for every purpose). So I'm neither an Adobe-hater nor a fanboi.
- LogEx
Ok, I can understand that there are certain legit uses of PDF, as I stated in the original post. I will add legal and contractual scenarios, where tamper-proofing is important. But I still think PDF is over-used in inappropriate ways.
- Alex Scrivener
Screw PDF. Can we all just use some assortment of jpeg, doc and txt?
- Mike Nayyar
from iPhone
Ha ha. I don't know... probably on the web side they do. I suppose I could be a little biased, being tangentially involved in the early PDF spec development, but in general I'm pretty objective about Adobe.
- LogEx
YES! That's exactly what I am talking about! Why would House bills be published in PDF?
- Alex Scrivener
"Government has spent lots of time and money developing flash tools to allow citizens to view charts and graphs online, and while we're happy the government is interested in allowing citizens to do this, Government's primary method of disclosure should not be these visualizations, but rather publishing the APIs and datasets that allow citizens to make their own. Only after those things are completed to the fullest extent possible should government be working on its own visualizations."
- Alex Scrivener
It would be better if house bills were published in .doc? I hate .doc files. Doc files are proprietary and require me to muck up my system with some MS app that I don't want or need. I certainly don't want government spending our tax dollars to become a software developer. That would be as ill advised as putting them in charge of health care. >.>
- David C. Cooper
Not .DOC, just something parsable, convertible. XML, RTF, anything. Just free the damn data!
- Alex Scrivener
Should they publish in LaTeX? Also, Pages on OS X opens .doc files, you ever find yourself needing that.
- Cristo
Is it editable? Parsable? Fit for something other than printing on dead trees?
- Alex Scrivener
"LaTeX is most widely used by mathematicians, scientists, engineers, philosophers, economists and other scholars in academia and the commercial world, and other professionals.[1] As a primary or intermediate format (e.g. translating DocBook and other XML-based formats to PDF), LaTeX is used because of the high quality of typesetting achievable by TeX. The typesetting system offers...
more...
- Cristo
This thread reminds me of the other one about which language will supersede C++. Neither C++ nor PDF is going away. If anything, getting people to use and read PDF is better than them using .doc files like many people still do.
- Cristo
I saw a book in the library yesterday that had on it's page about publishing info that it had been composed completely in LaTeX by the authors. Was surprised.
- Maxamad (Amazigh)
Alex, LaTeX is editable and parsable, but readers for it are not widely distributed like they are for PDF. E.g. PDF support is built into standard OS X, and I'm guessing LaTeX is not. It's an XML-like language though (not sure off the top of my head whether it conforms strictly to XML or SML or whatever). I used it to write a 500 page manual once, and when I first saw HTML I thought it was derived from LaTeX.
- Cristo
Sounds great, Cristo. As long as you don't need OCR to read the damn files.
- Alex Scrivener
I think being better than postscript had a lot to do with PDFs rise.
- Todd Hoff
"So not anyone can edit it" is actually a gross level of false sense of security. Since only a few people can, then people would be less likely to think that any random document has been edited, thereby putting greater trust in the contents of the documents, which actually is editable. Difficult to manipulate formats are no substitute for public key crypto, which is what you should be using if you want security of consistency of content.
- Andy Bakun
PDF is (or started out as) just a subset of postscript. postscript is a great tech. the whole "security" thing and adobe reader ruined it. and as andy said, the whole "not editable" thing is a sham
- mjc
I remember when the only difference was that .txt files went to the line printer and .pdf files went to the laser, and heaven forbid any student should mix them up or the IT manager would drop a ton of crap on us.
- Slippy "Threadsbane" Lane
Andy: exactly, non-cryptographically signed PDF are easily edited by a malicious attacker who is willing to spend a little time and effort
- Mike Chelen
After the last few comments, I reiterate and stand by my original point. I don't know why PDF is so widely used in so many inappropriate cases.
- Alex Scrivener
"Come back every day until November 15th and check out a Bundt cake. I'm not crazy enough to bake and post on the same day so I've been working on this for a week and the library is like a Bundt den. I just hope I can finish...you'll give me lots of encouragement, right?! I hope I can inspire you to bake a Bundt for your friends, family and even frienemies. Because the Bundt totally rocks. The Nordic Ware Bundt pan is American made and has limitless possibilities. I like Big Bundts and I cannot tell a lie. I'm going to get myself this or that t-shirt when I'm done! Please join me for the next 30 days to celebrate the Bundt! - mary the food (and Bundt!) librarian"
- edythe
from Bookmarklet
When I was 15, I went through a bundt cake phase. I would spend my wages on stuff to make more cakes. A smarter me would have sold the cakes instead of *eating* them.
- Anika
I like big... bundts and I cannot lie. You other bakers can't deny!
- Jason Huebel
We have a bundt cake pan, but have noticed that many grocery stores don't sell the special bundt cake mixes that used to be popular.
- Mark Jepsen
Oooh. I have a stone mini-bundt pan that makes 6. Now I want minicakes...mmm.
- The Archangel ωαřмaiden
I'd love to make the cakes, but I'm just too lazy and up up getting one from Costco.
- Kittyburgers
There is a hilerious scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding centered around the bundt cake. Any one remember it?
- Roberto Bonini
İşte kandanadam'dan sorumlu ff yazarlığı örneği. Meme var diye bizi bilgilendirerek belki de pas geçeceğimiz bir linke tıklamamızı sağladı. Teşekkürler kandanadam. Alkışlarımız sana.
- Selamon