Goodness

This pic makes me want to adopt another little Guatemaltecan girl to be sisters with Adriana!  I miss Guate!



Photo Citation: <https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152055837765464&set=a.383412905463.358112.315791905463&type=1&theater> Accessed 9/23/2012

A "Circa, Moleskin, Ipad, Evernote"~fest

If you know me IRL, then you know I constantly use a Circa Notebook for my planning and reference materials.  I like having things on paper and accessible.  I often have thought how cool it would be to have a "page" in my Circa that was also a computer screen.  I figure some kind of paper-thin computer will be coming to us from Google or Apple or some company that is currently being dreamed up by a 14 year old, and will be in production in 15 months or so...

But in the meantime, I have discovered this:

Dang!  CIRCA/IPAD FUSION!  

I don't have an IPAD, but still...

And then I found this today.  I am a fan of both Moleskin and Evernote, and now they have joined up in an unexpected way to bring us this interesting and maybe delightful product.

The New Evernote Smart Notebook by Moleskine

August 24, 2012 | Posted by Andrew Sinkov in Product updates

   

 

137 comments

 

Over the past year or so, Evernote has begun to really focus on the design and experience of our apps. We’ve been inspired by a wide range of companies and products that do this right, from Apple toUchida Yoko to Moleskine. In fact, in Moleskine, we saw more than inspiration, we saw an opportunity to do something amazing together that fully embodied our Experience First thinking.

Moleskine is the maker of beautifully designed notebooks and accessories that are the go-to choice for creative individuals of all types. While these notebooks are beloved for their quality and style, they suffer from an issue common to all physical notebooks…they’re physical.

That’s where Evernote comes in. We’ve partnered with Moleskine to develop a new, limited edition Evernote Smart Notebook that’s designed specifically for the new Evernote iOS application.

Together, we created a gorgeous notebook that includes a number of special features that allow you to take your ideas off the written page and place them right into Evernote, where they’ll be searchable, organized and available forever.

Pre-order your Evernote Smart Notebook »

New Features. Magical Pages. Smart Stickers.

Our goal was to create a notebook that met Moleskine’s aesthetic standards, while adding an entirely new level of functionality. Here’s what we did.

Special pages
The Evernote Smart Notebook comes in two page styles: ruled and squared. For each, we designed a special dotted paper pattern on the pages that was optimized for new features in Evernote…

Page Camera
Evernote for iPhone and iPad got an update today (version 4.4) that includes the new Page Camera functionality, which is designed for photos of physical pages and documents.

To use the Page Camera, launch the camera inside of Evernote, then tap on the new Page Camera icon at the top of the screen. Hold your camera above the page and center the image inside the rectangle. Snap a photo, then move on to the next page. Using your flash ensures that you’ll get the highest quality image. Tap on the page numbers to review the images you’ve taken. Tap the checkmark when you’re done.

Page Camera automatically improves the contrast of the page and removes any shadows. For the Evernote Smart Notebook by Moleskine, it finds the dot pattern and even corrects the skew of the photo. This means that the images that end up in your account are perfect for Evernote’s handwriting recognition, so that you’ll be able to find you thoughts anytime. But, there’s more…

Smart Stickers
As if that wasn’t cool enough, in the back pocket of each Moleskine notebook you’ll find a set of multi-color Smart Stickers. When you apply a sticker to a page and take a photo, Evernote recognizes the sticker and instantly associates a tag with the note or places it into a notebook that you specify in your Settings. The Smart Stickers come with some pre-defined tags, but you can customize them to be whatever you want.

In addition to the Smart Stickers, we also included some handy Skitch arrows. Use those to draw attention to important things on the page.

Check out our Getting Started with Evernote Smart Notebook for some guidance on getting started.

Premium included

As if all of that wasn’t great enough, each notebook also comes with 3-months of Evernote Premium.

Availability

These beautiful and powerful notebooks will be available in two sizes, pocket ($24.95) and large ($29.95), beginning on October 1. If you would like to be among the first to get your hands on one, you can pre-order them today from the Evernote Store.

Pre-order your Evernote Smart Notebook »

C.S. Lewis on when to pluck out your eye

 C.S. Lewis on one subtle danger in doing a good thing, a thing that we may love and even be called to do:

"...we may come to love knowledge - our knowing - more than the thing known: to delight not in the exercise of our talents but in the fact that they are ours, or even in the reputation they bring us.  Every success in the scholar's life increases this danger.  If it becomes irresistible, he must give up his scholarly work.  The time for plucking out the right eye has arrived."

Citation: Lewis, C.S. The Weight of Glory. HarperCollins Publishers. San Francisco. 2001. Page 57.

The ITypewriter! I just like this.

Go to the link below to see a video of this sweet piece of retro-tech in action

Citation: <http://www.austin-yang.com/index.php?/projects/iturntable/>. Accessed 8/18/2012

 Eve Tushnet writes

"Social science in many ways depends on moral philosophy. In deciding how to measure causation and what to control for you’re making judgments about which causal mechanisms you are willing to consider and which situations you consider equivalent." (emphasis mine, citation below)

That last sentence really captures one of the nuances that I have been pondering for the last several years.  

While the culture in which we find ourselves may shove us in one direction or another regarding such things as 

• what foods are "breakfast foods" or 
• whether or not we think farming or computer coding is a more prestigious job or 
• whether we think spanking is an appropriate form of discipline...
• (to name 3 of a near infinite number of particulars)

How the culture informs us about such things as causal connection and equivalency is much more important, because it is almost undetectable, and therefore more powerful. The fact is that our culture, and indeed our history in many ways dictates what we think is "right" when we are "making judgments about which causal mechanisms you are willing to consider and which situations you consider equivalent".  This puts words to something I have been thinking about, and feeling a bit disturbed about for quite a while.  

Rightly or wrongly, I have settled on, as one of my points of particular interest, 15th-17th century Europe, it's philosophical influence through its writers and events, and it's direct influence on groups of individuals who, in response to diverse stimuli, ended up landing in America and forming our society in response to the old societies which they left. I believe they have been primary influences that dictated to those of us who came after how we would make those judgements about causal mechanisms and equivalencies.

The downside is that I think they got it wrong.  

The upside is that I have begun to see it.  

And that is sobering, but helpful.

Alfred North Whitehead, in Science and the Modern World suggests:

"Do not chiefly direct your attention to those intellectual positions which controversialists feel it necessary explicitly to defend.  More important and more telling for the deep understanding of a culture are the fundamental assumptions which adherents of all the variant systems within the epoch unconsciously presuppose.  Such assumptions appear so obvious that people do not know what they are assuming.  Indeed, they do not know that they are assuming anything, because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them."

I think that what we perceive as causation, and what we consider equivalent is one of those deeply rooted assumptions that we do not understand as being an assumption.  And I think we should consider them deeply.

Citation: <http://www.theamericanconservative.com/three-kinds-of-argument-on-family-structure/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=three-kinds-of-argument-on-family-structure>. Accessed 8/15/12

The Jama Cold-Brew Coffee Maker! Probably need one...

Image Citation: <http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/3137UjasqmL._SL500_AA300_.jpg>.  Accessed 8/8/12

I do not get kickbacks for this advertisement

This box of classy truffles is one of Gracie and my favorite coffee accompaniments.  Really top notch, I think, for a reasonable price ($10 at Walmart in the specialty candy section).  Worth a try.

How mercy changes things

Gracie and I recently read When Sinners Say 'I Do', which, in case the title is not clear, is about marriage in light of the Gospel.  A helpful read, which added a few pieces to the Gospel-life puzzle for me.  All that I have been reading on the Gospel of Jesus Christ has started to develop a picture of life inside the Kingdom of God, and how people might act there, and more importantly - why.  It is has been a very intriguing vision.

"Mercy doesn't change the need to speak truth.  It transforms our motivation from a desire to win battles to a desire to represent Christ.  It takes me out of the center and puts Christ in the center.  This requires mercy.

Mercy takes people who are capable of open warfare over toothpaste tubes and toilet seats, and enlarges their vision to include a Savior. Mercy confronts a sinner wrapped in self-pity and protected by pride and shows him the way out of the darkness into the light.  Mercy inspires us to move beyond "the power and government of self-love" back to the nobler and benevolent principles of our new nature."

Citation: Harvey, Dave. When Sinners Say 'I Do'. Shepherd Press. Waphallopen, PA. 2007. Pg.  82.

Karl Barth to Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Pipe Smoking

This was written during a catastrophic period in world history, lest we forget that as we work for truth and peace, there are small delights...

The world is in bad shape, but we don't want to let our pipe go out under and circumstances, do we?

Citation: Metaxas, Eric. Bonhoeffer. Thomas Nelson, 2010. Page 120

Aggressive response to the Gospel

Matt Chandler:


Grace-driven effort is violent. It is aggressive. The person who understands the gospel understands that, as a new creation, his spiritual nature is in opposition to sin now, and he seeks not just to weaken sin in his life but to outright destroy it. Out of love for Jesus, he wants sin starved to death, and he will hunt and pursue the death of every sin in his heart until he has achieved success.


This is a very different pursuit than simply wanting to be good. It is the result of having transferred one’s affections to Jesus. When God’s love takes hold of us, it powerfully pushes out our own love for other gods and frees our love to flow back to him in true worship. And when we love God, we obey him. The moralist doesn’t operate that way. While true obedience is a result of love, moralistic legalism assumes it works the other way around, that love results from obedience.


The Explicit Gospel, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 217–218.


Citation: <http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/when-grace-goes-violent> Accessed 5/12/12

Tim Keller on the Gospel's particularity

"The gospel of Jesus is not religion or irreligion, morality or immorality, moralism or relativism, conservatism or liberalism.  Nor is it something halfway along a spectrum between two poles-it is something else altogether. 

The gospel is distinct from the other two approaches: In its view, everyone is wrong, everyone is loved, and everyone is called to recognize this and change."

I appreciate the layered thinking.  I am typically so black and white, that anytime someone gives an alternative to a common  false dilemma , it is helpful.

C.S. Lewis on oranges

C.S. Lewis to a Mrs. Johnson:

"The good things even of this world are far too good ever to be reached by imagination.  Even the common orange, you know: no one could have imagined it before he tasted it. How much less heaven."

Reflecting the love of Another

C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, articulates a truth that has been slow to dawn on me.

"The Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ life inside him.  He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because he loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it."

 The ramifications of this truth has started to cultivate some old, hard ground in my life, and I am starting to see some green sprouts of life popping to the surface.  Delightful to be absorbing some warm rays of His love toward me.  Which is QUITE a different experience than trying to broadcast my own "goodness" toward Him to try and get His attention.

A little truth which is bigger than it first appears

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."
-Robert Brault

Ken Myers on C. S. Lewis' views on Presentism

Ken Myers, author of the "Contours of Culture" column in Touchstone magazine, illuminates C. S. Lewis' thinking on "Presentism": 


"Lewis laments the mentality of "Presentism," of provincialism in time, that plagues modern imaginations.  

"How has it come about that we use the highly emotive word 'stagnation,' with all its malodorous and malarial overtones, for what other ages would have called 'permanence'?...Why does 'latest' in advertisements mean 'best'?" 

"Lewis argued that this preoccupation with the present (and indifference  to or suspicion of the past) was a function of living with so much technology

"I submit that what has imposed this climate of opinion so firmly on the human mind is a new archetypal image.  It is the image of old machines being superseded by new and better ones.  For in the world of machines the new most often really is better and the primitive really is clumsy."

"He went on to argue that our assumption that everything is provisional and soon to be superseded - that we should live for the next thing rather than treasure and honor the permanent things - was the single aspect of modern life that detached us most thoroughly from all previous ages of history." (1)


This view is particularly pithy when cross-referenced with a letter I read recently while reading Letters of C. S. Lewis. Lewis is responding to a letter from (I am not making this up) "The Society For The Prevention Of Progress" in May 1944:

"While feeling that I was born a member of your Society, I am nevertheless honoured to receive the outward seal of membership.  I shall hope by continued orthodoxy and the unremitting practice of Reaction, Obstruction, and Stagnation to give you no reason for repenting your favour..." (2)

Citation: 
(1) Myers, Ken. Touchstone Magazine: Contours of Culture, "No Time Like the Present". May/June, 2011.  Volume 24, Number 3. Pages 11, 12.
(2)  Lewis, W. H., Editor. Letters of C. S. Lewis. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. New York. 1966. Page 204.