Categories
quotes

Liberal Modernity and Secularism

[M]odernity (especially liberal modernity) makes things difficult (perhaps uniquely difficult) for people of faith. It fosters a pluralism that denies any one religion the power to organize the whole of social life. It teaches that public authorities must submit to the consent of those over whom they aspire to rule, thereby undermining the legitimacy of all forms of absolutism. It employs the systematic skepticism of the scientific method to settle important questions of public policy. It encourages the growth of the capitalist marketplace, which unleashes human appetites and gives individuals the freedom to choose among an ever-expanding range of ways to satisfy them.

Damon Linker, in Is secularism inevitable? [theweek.com] from The Week
Categories
quotes

Making decisions based on trees and flowers

Of course there are several major differences between human and bee consensus, not the least of which is that we are not part of a hive mind, despite how much the internet often feels like one. Also, we don’t usually make decisions based on trees and flowers, though maybe we should.

Annalee Newitz, in This video of a honeybee swarm reveals why humans can’t form consensus [io9.com]
Categories
photography travel

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, June 2013

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I spent a weekend in Sydney between work meetings. It rained much of the weekend but I got a few hours on Saturday afternoon to go and see the city. On the upside the rain left a bit of a rainbow and I was able to get a few shots of it from Harbor Bridge. The weather also made for some very dramatic clouds at sunset and a wonderful reflection of this buildings windows:

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You can see the rest of the Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, June 2013 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

Categories
ranting

An analog day

Ahem. <cough> A haiku:

I forgot my phone
In the living room at home
I feel so alone

Being separated from the instantaneous global communications and the soft LED glow of mindless entertainment is all well and good, even desirable, when I’m on vacation but annoying when I’m at work.

Categories
photography travel

Gold Coast, Australia, June 2013

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In June the family took a short holiday to the Gold Coast in Australia. Took the kids to Sea World and Movie World and whale watching. Not much for photo taking but the whales and the beach sunset on the first day were great.

During the whale watching we got to follow a few whales for almost 45 minutes, and we saw dolphins along side the whales and even a sea turtle. Unfortunately we didn’t see the whales breach but lots of surfacing for air – blow holes, humps and tails.

The beach was amazing, even in the southern winter the water was fairly warm – warmer than the air in fact. We played in the surf a lot, I think that Tori may have enjoyed the time at the beach better than anything else. The beach as Surfers Paradise — and in fact the whole town — reminded me of Gulf Shores and my granddads beach house when I was a kid. Wonderful shallow surf you could wade out in for a long way, sugar sand and all. It just had that small beach town feel, not like the mega tourist beach towns. I will have to take Tori and Livi back again just to play on the beach.

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You can see the whole Gold Coast, Australia, June 2013 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].