Finally, the British have lifted the ban on persons in line for the throne marrying Catholics
See the story at the BBC:
The ban on the monarch being married to a Roman Catholic was also lifted.
Hooray for religious freedom!
However, the monarch himself can’t be Catholic. I suppose that’s a symptom of being head of the Church of England.
Amazon just released their new Kindle Fire tablet…sort of. You can pre-order one, but it won’t arrive until after November 15. I, however, will pass on the neat device and wait until Amazon produces a full color E Ink touch screen Kindle, hopefully with a keyboard. I told you before how the E ink company has developed a color version of their technology. That is way more attractive to me because of the super long battery life, the light weight, the ability to read in bright light. Overall, I see the E Ink technology way more conducive to reading than any kind of LCD screen. We’ll see, but I’m hoping to see a full color Kindle in the next 18 months.
When discussing whether Solomon himself or some of his companions wrote Song of Songs 8:11-12, he pronounces the question unanswerable and says,
Since we all agree that the voice is that of the Holy Ghost, why squabble about his instrument? Let us rather look for what the Holy Spirit wanted to convey to use in these words, seeing that he is the sole author of this marriage song, in the deepest sense.
–John of Ford, “Sermon One Hundred and Sixteen,” in Sermons on the Final Verses of the Song of Songs, translated by Wendy Mary Beckett (Cistercian Fathers 47; Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1984), 193.
“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp.”
–Ursula Le Guin
For all you Genesis enthusiasts out there, a Dutchman by the name of Johan Huibers is building a giant life-size replica of Noah’s ark (or “Ark van Noach” in Dutch). It’s well worth taking time to scope out the photos on his website. Pretty soon, it should be open for tourist business. So next time you’re in Europe, maybe you could swing by and walk around inside. If you get a chance, send me some pictures!
And, if you’d like, you can see the Today Show video on the boat:
If you can’t make it all the way to the land of wooden shoes, maybe you can pay a visit to the Bluegrass state to visit the Ark Encounter theme park with a life-size Noah’s Ark.
I’m not sure why there’s a surge in Ark-interest, but hey, whatever floats your boat!
Amazon has been pushing its current version of the Kindle–Kindle 3–with lots of price drops and new categories like the “Kindle with Special Offers” which puts a bar of ads across the bottom of the Kindle screen while you’re reading. I’ve been interested in the Kindle for a long time because I love reading and I love ordering books from Amazon. But also, the Kindle uses a really special technology called e-ink. It’s not an LCD screen, but a “bi-polar” ink that changes color from white to black when it receives a tiny electric charge. This technology is amazing. It’s low-power and it’s not backlit, so it doesn’t hurt your eyes. It’s way more like reading a real ink-and-paper book than any other kind of screen. I’ve been impressed by it ever since Popular Science did an article about it more than 10 years ago.
There are a few drawbacks to the Kindle, however:
1. No touch screen. This means you can’t write on the screen like you can on paper, so making notes in books is impossible. And to be honest, have you really read a book if you haven’t made a mark in it? See Mortimer Adler’s book, How to Read a Book, if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Ok, ok, the Kindle does allow you to make notes, but only typed notes, so how does that help us folks who underline, star and bracket things all the time.
2. No SD card slot. The original Kindle had an SD card slot–just like your camera, phone or other device. This meant that the size of storage was customizable at the user end of things. It also meant you take a huge file, throw it on an SD card using your computer at work or wherever and then read it on your Kindle. But now, no can do. To get something on your Kindle from your computer, you have to transfer it over USB. Boring! This is like 10-year-old technology or more. The reason the Kindle has this limitation is so that you are tempted to get everything you read on your Kindle through the Amazon store. Yuck. Ok, they do have a lot of free public domain books, but there are so many other kinds of things I’d like to read besides them.
3. No Color. The original e-ink technology is just black and white, with a little grayscale thrown in. Not so hot for our full color world. (I mean, when was the last time you saw a black-and-white TV?)
These are the reasons I have not bought a Kindle. But there are rumors out there about Kindle 4, no real information. However, I think we have reason to hope that Amazon Kindle 4 will have a color touchscreen. And that would overcome two of my three objections! But why do I say this? Is it just idle speculation. Nope. It’s based on evidence–very clear evidence in my mind.
The Eink company, which makes the screens for Kindle, is now advertising a new product–color e-ink displays that also act as a touchscreen. The new technology is called “Triton.” They have a PDF brochure which explains the new technology. In the brochure, they describe the new color display like this:
With the E Ink Triton color configuration, a thin transparent colored filter array (CFA) is added in front of the black and white display. Now the display can also reflect color. The CFA consists four sub-pixels – red, green, blue, and white – that are combined to create a full-colorpixel. The result? A low-power, direct-sunlight, readable color ePaper display that is mass manufactured in a practical way.
So the original white pixel hides behind four color subpixels that then combine to produce visible colord. I just want to know how they tell the screen which of the four subpixels to use. Here’s a little commercial from them on how it works:
Ok, but what about the touchscreen capabilities? Will I really be able to draw on the screen of a Kindle 4 with Triton technology?
Well, on the brochure, it says, “Touch-compatible E Ink technology enables pen or finger input which enhances
the user-experience.” Now I’m not entirely sure why it says “touch compatible” instead of just “touch,” but hey, who’s counting.
All this means that we’re likely to see an Amazon Kindle 4 with a color display and touch capability. But when? That’s another important question. I vote we’ll see it in 2012. A recent CNET interview the Vice President of Eink says they don’t plan to release any Triton-based e-reader in 2011. I’m still tempted to get a Kindle 3, but these new features to be released possibly next year, make me want to wait for the Kindle 4. I don’t think I’ll be disappointed if I do.
I came across a reference to chaff being burning in the Bible in Exodus 15:7 and I thought,
“Hey, why does the Bible always mention chaff and fire at the same time?”
Here are some examples:
…you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble. (Exo 15:7 ESV)
Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble… (Isa 5:24 ESV)
You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble; your breath is a fire that will consume you. (Isa 33:11 ESV)
Behold, they are like stubble; the fire consumes them… (Isa 47:14 ESV)
…like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble… (Joe 2:5 ESV)
The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them… (Oba 1:18 ESV)
they are consumed like stubble fully dried. (Nah 1:10 ESV)
For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. (Mal 4:1 ESV)
…but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire (Mat 3:12 ESV)
…but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Luk 3:17 ESV)
Chaff is the leftovers of the wheat stalk when the edible grain has been removed by the process of threshing and winnowing. Chaff is also sometimes called “stubble.” In Hebrew, there are actually two words, one for chaff (?????), the little inedible fuzzies at the top of the stalk and one for stubble (???), the long stick-like part of the stalk. Apparently, it was a normal part of Israelite agriculture to burn the chaff after the winnowing process was complete. And it seems that the burning pile of chaff was a rather impressive show since it impressed itself on the Hebrew imagination so thoroughly as to serve as a good metaphor for God’s judgment. I got curious, and of course, looked it up on YouTube. I found a burning field of wheat stubble–slightly different than flaming piles of chaff. Take a look, if you like:
You may have come across a newspaper article entitled something like the following:
If you read the articles, you would notice that they all tell a story of an ostracon which somehow indicates that the Bible is super old, way older than most scholars hold. Then you would feel that all these stories came from the same source. And you would be right. It was this press release from Haifa University and Prof. Gershon Galil.
But you would not know that the ostracon in the limelight was discovered in July 2008 at Khibet Qeiyafa, an archaeological dig by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. You would not know that there has been great interest in this ostracon and tons of research and imaging, all chronicled here. You would not know that the original publication of the ostracon was done by Haggai Misgav and followed up by Ada Yardeni. You would not know that the archaeological team that found the ostracon wrote a rather harsh open letter to Prof. Galil.
I came across something rather interesting in a book about the Fatima apparitions by Cardinal Bertone. In it, Bertone presents the notes of Albino Luciani who met with Sr. Lucia, one of the Fatima visionaries, on July 11, 1997. Of course, Luciani soon became Pope John Paul I. The quote I am extracting from the notes deals with Sr. Lucia’s advice to theologians. Here it is:
-Luciani Albino, [notes], quoted in Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, The Last Secret of Fatima (New York: Doubleday, 2008) 60.
I suppose we Bible students should take these words to heart. It does seem that many lose zeal for their faith after many years of studying it intensely. I think over-studying the Faith is similar to over-studying music or butterflies or something. One can easily lose the joy of discovery, the sense of wonder when he thinks he knows something.
I am not exactly sure why this happens. I mean, why should studying give way to pride, puffing up and lack of faith? But these symptoms do seem very common. It seems to me that they derive from the basic functions of human pride. After many years of gaining knowledge through study, a person may think that he knows something–that is, that he knows more than others or is less naive than the regular Joe. Then his mind makes this false leap: “If I know about something I must have conquered it in some way.” So he forgets the fact that he must pray, do good, give alms, serve the poor and live out the basics of the Christian life. Knowledge thus leads to pride and pride leads to apathy and apathy leads to aridity.
Oddly, this process contradicts the way that knowledge should function. A person with a deeper knowledge of poetry, literature and acting should be able to put on a much more convincing performance of Shakespeare than a hormone-ridden teenager. Yet hormone-ridden teenagers often outperform aged literature professors on stage. A serious student of the Bible (or of theology in general) ought to live a more convinced and convincing spiritual life than a person who has not had the luxury of study.
You may know from viewing the persons in my blog’s sidebar that I am a fan of the Seraphic Doctor, St. Bonaventure. You may not know that his complete works (his opera omnia, if you will) has been scanned by Google and placed online in Google books and on the new Hathi Trust Digital Library where you can download PDF’s of the full non-critical Quaracchi Latin edition of his works. These books are very expensive and hard to find and it is an absolute joy to me that they are now online and freely available to all. Of course, if you don’t read Latin, you’ll still have to buy a translation, but perhaps, Google translate will come out with a Latin-English function. 🙂 We can all hope.
Bonaventure published several commentaries on Scripture. Recently, the very diligent friars at St. Bonaventure College in Pennsylvania, the Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University have been translating Bonaventure’s scripture commentaries and his other works into English. They are up to 14 volumes now!
[Updated 9/1/14]