I've been intellectually and mystically lazy the past few years. Other things, such as getting a little family going has kept my nose firmly in poo-filled nappies and out of books more complex than chewable ones.
But recently the age-old question of "Does God Exist?" have itched my brain to a point I can’t ignore it anymore. Can a God be justifiable in a world of scientific discoveries that I have long since given up understanding (what the bloody hell is super string theory and why should I care?).
It started with seeing the book "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins in the bookstores and ended with seeing the book "The Language of God" by Francis S. Collins. I read the back of the books and bought both of them thinking I now had a chance to have two famous scientists with very fancy titles and amazing achievements under their belt tell me the state of things.
Dawkins will of course push the atheist cause, as – in his view – there is no room for a supernatural God of any kind in the world of science. Collins on the other hand will argue the other side – that science and God is indeed compatible.
If anyone pushes me up against the wall demanding to know my religious belief I'd say I'm an agnostic – but in all honesty, the past 10 years or so, this has been more a case of intellectual laziness than anything else. It is so easy to fall into the trap of arguing that God's existence can't be proven either way, so you end up in the agnostic camp by default.
So here is my challenge to Dawkins and Collins. You guys convince me either way. I will read both of your books with as open mind as I can. Turn me into a staunch atheist or a God-loving person instead of the wishy-washy fence sitter I’ve turned into.
I will report back my findings in this blog and I apologize to anyone who would prefer me to prove/disprove science and religion based on breast size instead (as I have already done that in a previous post). This is a serious stuff people - even more important than breast size.
Ok...so no one asked for more ambigrams after my questionable first foray into the field. At least allow me to complete the family picture.
I do apologize to anyone actually dropping their monitor after following my advice in the previous post. Rest assured that if you were stupid enough to do that, you probably shouldn't be allowed to use a computer anyway.
I am extremely proud of the Amelia one as I think it is amazingly pretty. Only trouble is that most of it was copied from an elready existing ambigram (Amelie), so I got the "mel" in the middle for free. I had to come up with the " A" turning into "iA" though and for that I deserve some credit.
The Freya one isn't as pretty. The letters unfortunately doesn't give much to work with. You can make out Freya if you are really well disposed towards me (which probably isn't the case after I made you break your monitor).
I quite like the Jennifer one. It is a little bit forced, but not too much I think...
I have developed an unhealthy fascination with ambigrams, to the point of trying to make them myself.
According to the definition an ambigram is: a word or words that can be read in more than one way or from more than a single vantage point, such as both right side up and upside down. (from Latin: ambi=both + gram=letter)...
Pretty much any novice will start with their own name first, so of course that is where I started. See below for my name in all its ambigrammatical glory.
So how do you read it? Hopefully you've been able to read "mikael" from the above scribbles. The trick is now to take the monitor you are reading this on and turn it upside down. If all cables are still plugged into it, you should be able to see that this word reads the same upside down!
Put the monitor down and congratulate me for the effort...
Today I found out why I am crap at typing. It is that damned QWERTY keyboard that constantly trips me up. I also realized – yet again – that I know nothing and after almost 37 years alive I’ve still managed to miss key historical information about the one tool I’ve just more than any other – the keyboard. You probably all know this, but it was a mystery to me until today.
Christopher Latham Sholes of Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA, invented a typewriter in September 1867. As with previous attempts the keys were in an ABCDEFG layout and the typists soon got too fast and jammed the keys. The key levers hit the platen from underneath and then fell back down under gravity.
Instead of putting return spring to fix the problem, he asked his brother in law to devise a different layout of the keys. Publicly he said it was to put the most commonly used letters far apart on the keyboard to reduce the chances of the levers jamming. The result was the QWERTY layout that we all know and hate.
So what does this mean? It means that the keyboard layout was invented to slow typists down. We are all hacking away on keyboards that were designed to be hard to use! And we’ve been doing it for almost 150 years!
I’m sure most of us assumed that the arbitrary jumble of letters at our fingertips was there to make things easier, not harder. I suspect our lives are full of such things. We’re just too busy trying to make sense of things, to realize there is no sense to make in the first place...
