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Patron Saints of Graphic Design. W. Lynn Garrett does a superb job of drawing on Catholic literary and artistic tradition to come up with a professional graphic designer’s tongue-in-cheek hagiology. Some of the saints’ histories are funny, others are groaners, but all of the “paintings” (actually digital photocollages) are exceptionally well done, with all the narrative detail one would see in a medieval triptych.
(Also posted to Metafilter.)
+ “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”
+ Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
+ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Christos Aneste!
(Note: This entry has nothing to do with that leopard love story, Honore de Balzac’s A Passion in the Desert.)
Interesting report from Country Keepers about The Passion making a significant splash in Qatar and Kuwait, generating among Muslims an interest in Jesus and Scripture. Ironically, interest in the film was piqued by word of its supposed anti-Semitic content. Just as ironic is the film’s propagation via the spread of “sinful” pirated DVDs.
TPOTC has also made a timely Holy Week premiere in the Philippines, where I think it has been well-received. Filipinos are mostly Roman Catholic, after all, and are also less likely to be offended by scenes of gore and violence, being a people more jaded to such things than an American audience. (Especially with those bloody penitentias literally flagellating themselves down provincial roads and nailing themselves to crosses. More on that some other time.) For an excellent POV on TPOTC from a Filipino Catholic philosophy professor at a Jesuit university, here’s the review from Rowie.
Meanwhile, here in the USA, they’re whipping Easter bunnies. The horror, the horror.
+ And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
+ “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? …. they have pierced my hands and feet — I can count all my bones — they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”
+ And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
+ We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
+ And when your children say to you, “What do you mean by this service?” you shall say, “It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.”
+ And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many…”
+ But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
Middle Earth as MMPORG. From past playings of Avatar MUD and Legend of the Red Dragon, I can attest to the need for Level 1 Newbies to go out into the forest and kill rats and squirrels in droves for a few days before they can get to the major league. That’s to get you acquainted with the delicious flavor of ennui-inducing repetition of which most MMPORGs are composed. Perhaps it’s to keep fanfic-writing players from capitalizing on their adventures to write bestselling fiction.
Link found via Ipse Dixit who in turn found it via Ami- Amygdalg- Amygdalaf- Gary. More discussion in this MeFi thread.
Today in CPU casemod weirdness:
Rock Paper Scissors Spock Lizard. I’m puzzled enough already as to how Paper could possibly beat Rock in the regular game, now you have to wonder why a Lizard would eat Paper, or why Spock would vaporize a rock. I can probably understand Lizard poisoning Spock, though, since Vulcans are vegetarian. But didn’t ancient Vulcans eat lizard? And if Vulcans are vegetarian to avoid illogical killing, why won’t they eat replicated meat?
Update: And I wonder if Evil Mirror Universe Spock eats meat? To see how you would look in the Evil Mirror Universe, get a goatee.
Sixty years after Antoine de Saint Exupéry, author of The Little Prince, disappeared while conducting aerial surveillance photography for the Allies during World War II, parts of his plane have been found where it presumably crashed into the sea.
If you haven’t yet read The Little Prince, or have not read it recently, by all means do so. I first read it as a child, having discovered an old, 1943-edition paperback among the dusty books in the cabinet under the family altar. Since then I’ve read it at least three times more, and have come away from the reading with something new each time.
Pilots, astronomers, boa constrictors, and readers everywhere lift a toast to you, Monsieur Antoine, as you now fly among the stars.
So last week was an interesting one, memetically: a link from Instapundit to the Kerry Daisy, and an April Fools’ barrage of links to the March for Web Standards, spawned from A Whole Lotta Nothing, Boingboing, StopDesign, and WaSP — all this within a span of two days. Traffic jumped from an average of about 200 visits per day to almost 2000 visits on 3/31, to over 3000 on 4/01.
It pays to be ready for traffic spikes and sudden popularity. Though the bandwidth issue may be dead to some, not all of us are hosted on paid or owned servers, or perhaps we simply wish to stick with what’s cheap, and are willing to accept bandwidth limitations for affordability. But that is no reason your web presence should go down in error screens with the first MeFi or Slashdot FPP. Here are a few tips to keep you afloat through the bandwidth crests:
<div> class attributes, spacer GIFs (argh), and frames, and you can cut your page size — and loading time — to a fraction of what it was. There’s something to be said for minimalism.Another cliché to remember: every byte counts. Here’s hoping your website stays up through those fifteen minutes of fame. Comments are open to any useful additional input.