Recently in Interesting & Amusing Category

Like any little kid, I used to love dreaming about "the future" and all the nifty gadgets there would be. One invention I specifically remembering imagining was that of glasses where you could watch a movie right before your eyes--no TV's or movie theatres necessary. Simply load the movie onto the glasses, and enter into the virtual reality of the film.

I had forgotten about this dream for years, and then while doing some web surfing for Christmas presents, I found this. iPod video goggles--the transition from projecting movies to the viewer to projecting the viewer into the movie. I was stoked. I was fully prepared to save my pennies for as long as necessary if it meant I could jump into Middle Earth or Tatooine. Oh boy, the future is wonderful! ...right?

As I paraded about the house, excitedly telling my family members about the actualized childhood dream, a quotation from the wise John Donne intruded (against my will!) into my mind: "No man is an island."

Technology should bring together, not detach.

Kurt Vonnegut has a short story in Welcome to the Monkey House in which people strive to become elites so that they can afford to spend their lives plugged into a pleasurable, perfect, virtual reality. Reading the story as a freshman in high school, I had a reaction of shock and horror to the tale--but why? What is it about the thought of a completely virtual "life" that causes us to instantly label it as wrong and horrid?

Maybe because there's something very cowardly in the wish to escape what is true and moreover, who is true, for a pacific isolation.

After the creation of Adam in Genesis, God said it was not good for man to be alone. Humans are designed to uphold and enjoy the company of each other. Great thinkers from Aristotle to Confucius recognized this, and labored to understand and categorize relationships. While we can rightly turn to these thinkers for wisdom, the mysterious and wonderful depths of human interaction continue to pass full comprehension. People need one another, and therefore, I think it would be wise to approach with caution any device that encourages isolation.

Now, I don't mean to blow all this out of proportion. I'm still a fan of technology, and of those wicked awesome goggles. Nonetheless, it also seems easy to rush into technological capabilities without assuring that we have the prudence required to responsibly possess new powers.

I don't know about you, but I know myself well enough to know that I should not buy iPod video goggles. I'd be extremely tempted to isolate myself in my room for hours at a time, gorging on hyper-exciting and mythic 'realities' to point where the true and beautiful world would appear dull.

Now, all that being said...if you have the virtue of moderation, I would start hinting for this Christmas present immediately.

Merry Christmas!

Interesting:

The physics of this dunk by LeBron James

Amusing:

Sound smarter than you are. Smugopedia.

Bling

"Although all the rage today, bling couldn't have existed a few years ago; FDR, after all, made the private ownership of gold illegal and confiscated all gold in the country."

The internet is full of interesting and amusing things. Periodically, I will feature the interesting and amusing things that come across my desk.

Something Interesting

In a couple of days the Acton Institute will be premiering a film at GodblogCon titled "The Birth of Freedom." The film promises to give an interesting analysis of the relationship between liberty and religion. From their website, here is a brief description of the film:

The American founders said that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain unalienable rights--that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They called this a self-evident truth. Eighty-seven years later, Abraham Lincoln reaffirmed this idea on the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg. And in 1963 these same words echoed from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as Martin Luther King, Jr. urged America to fulfill the promise of its founding.

But humans are separated by enormous differences in talent and circumstance. Why would anyone believe that all men are created equal? That all should be free? That all deserve a voice in choosing their leaders? Why would any nation consider this a self-evident truth?

For the millions around the world who have never tasted liberty, the question cries for an answer.

And the trailer:

Something Amusing

For all of us Battlestar Galactica fans, here is an amusing side-by-side:

I'm not saying anything, but I'm glad ours is being compared to President Laura Roslin and not Gaius Baltar, the young, popular, politician for change. (HT: Likely Tales)