– J.K. Rowling an occasional reader of blogs who comes across MEdia Dragon once in a while ;-)
If I had my time to go over again, I would make my sermons much shorter, for I am conscious they have been too wordy.
The German theologian Martin Luther died in 1546. A biographical work published in London in 1846 attributed the following words to him:
If I had my time to go over again, I would make my sermons much shorter, for I am conscious they have been too wordy.
Didn't have an hour to watch the PM's speech? Catch up on the key points here
Prime Minister Scott Morrison outlines the first steps in what he's calling a JobMaker plan. Catch up on the key points from his National Press Club address here.
What makes this photo so amazing is that it looks so ordinary. The man in the shorts waiting in line in this shop in Portugal is the President
When he was a kid, Rob Kenney had a rough family life and grew up without stable parents around to teach him how to do common household chores. He and his wife successfully raised two children and Kenney decided to use his parenting experience to help those who may be lacking parental guidance. He’s started a YouTube channel called “Dad, how do I?” that offers “practical ‘dadvice’ for every day tasks” like how to fix a running toilet, how to check the oil in your car, and how to shave your face.
Everyone wants a glimpse of the post-Covid world, so the public square is thick with prophets. Ignore them
They've announced the shortlists for this year's Orwell Prizes, including the award for political fiction; finalists for that include Booker Prize-co-winner Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo, Pulitzer Prize-winner The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, and Lucy Ellmann's Ducks, Newburyport.
The winners will be announced 25 June.
Slate – We should take comfort in hating this. “…My internal alien has identified the lack of normal eye contact as one central pitfall of the video-chat experience. Talk to someone over FaceTime or Zoom, and they’ll never quite meet your eyes. They’ll spend the call looking at their screen, a few inches below or to the side of their camera, giving you the perpetual feeling of trying to get the attention of someone who’s ever so slightly preoccupied. Once, on a Skype call many years ago, a friend looked directly into her camera to say something heartfelt to me with the approximation of true eye contact. The effect was jarring: I didn’t fully realize that we hadn’t been making eye contact until she was suddenly staring straight into my soul from inside my screen. She was gazing at her computer’s eye, not mine, and could actually see less of my face than when she was looking at her screen, yet I felt strangely, uncomfortably exposed. When I recently tried it on a video call with my niece and nephew in an attempt to make them laugh, it gave me the unsettling impression of carrying on a conversation with HAL 9000, who’d been watching me watch the kids throughout our call. (FaceTime, perhaps even more eerily, has a new feature that attempts “eye contact correction” to make it appear you’re looking directly at each other, even when you’re not.)…”
BuzzFeedNews: A quarantine reading list courtesy of Glennon Doyle, Veronica Roth, Julia Alvarez, and more. ” Powell’s Books recently asked some of its favorite authors to share which books they’re reading and recommending during quarantine. Here’s what they had to say…”
These websites take different routes to suggest books to read
In less than a week, a grad student casually solved a famous math problem that had gone unsolved for decades. When she told her advisor: "He started yelling, 'Why aren't you more excited?'"
77 Nobel Laureates Denounce Trump Officials For Pulling Coronavirus Research Grant NPR (NPR)
REASON MAGAZINE WRITERS CAN NOW RETURN TO THE OFFICE: Scientists believe cannabis could help prevent and treat coronavirus.
ALEX MITCHELL. Don Harwin becomes cactus
In the halcyon days of the NSW Liberal Party’s ascendancy, Don Harwin was a fast-rising star. Then he hit a wall and fell from being one of State’s most powerful Liberal Ministers to the lowly status of an unloved backbencher. How and why? (Only Barry O'Farrell knows) Continue reading
Time to abolish the spies?
Planned expansion of the powers of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) should alarm anyone who believes in democratic values and rule of law.
Everyone wants a glimpse of the post-Covid world, so the public square is thick with prophets. Ignore them
The winners will be announced 25 June.
This lovely short film by Cristóbal Vila shows how the simple Fibonacci sequence manifests itself in natural forms like sunflowers, nautilus shells, and dragonfly wings.
See also Arthur Benjamin’s TED Talk on the Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio and the Fibonacci Shelf
ABC’s four-episode 1994 The Stand miniseries was directed by Mick Garris and featured an all-star ’90s cast, with Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Jamey Sheridan, Laura San Giacomo, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Miguel Ferrer, Matt Frewer, Rob Lowe, and even NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabar appearing in the project. It was well-received by viewers, bringing in an average of 19 million viewers
per episode, and received two Primetime Emmy Awards, but after 26 years
(and as with many early screen adaptations of King’s works), the
series hasn’t really aged well.Slate – We should take comfort in hating this. “…My internal alien has identified the lack of normal eye contact as one central pitfall of the video-chat experience. Talk to someone over FaceTime or Zoom, and they’ll never quite meet your eyes. They’ll spend the call looking at their screen, a few inches below or to the side of their camera, giving you the perpetual feeling of trying to get the attention of someone who’s ever so slightly preoccupied. Once, on a Skype call many years ago, a friend looked directly into her camera to say something heartfelt to me with the approximation of true eye contact. The effect was jarring: I didn’t fully realize that we hadn’t been making eye contact until she was suddenly staring straight into my soul from inside my screen. She was gazing at her computer’s eye, not mine, and could actually see less of my face than when she was looking at her screen, yet I felt strangely, uncomfortably exposed. When I recently tried it on a video call with my niece and nephew in an attempt to make them laugh, it gave me the unsettling impression of carrying on a conversation with HAL 9000, who’d been watching me watch the kids throughout our call. (FaceTime, perhaps even more eerily, has a new feature that attempts “eye contact correction” to make it appear you’re looking directly at each other, even when you’re not.)…”
BuzzFeedNews: A quarantine reading list courtesy of Glennon Doyle, Veronica Roth, Julia Alvarez, and more. ” Powell’s Books recently asked some of its favorite authors to share which books they’re reading and recommending during quarantine. Here’s what they had to say…”
These websites take different routes to suggest books to read
In less than a week, a grad student casually solved a famous math problem that had gone unsolved for decades. When she told her advisor: "He started yelling, 'Why aren't you more excited?'"
77 Nobel Laureates Denounce Trump Officials For Pulling Coronavirus Research Grant NPR (NPR)
#Coronavirus #COVID19 #India #Kashmir
Relatives wearing Personal Protective Equipment carry the coffin of a woman who died from COVID-19 in Srinagar.@TauseefMUSTAFA #AFP pic.twitter.com/25r7r1mNjN
— AFP Photo (@AFPphoto) May 21, 2020
The Interpreter: a mind-blowing Covid conversation New York Times (furzy)
Science/Medicine
