Steve Pavlina has written some great pieces on how to become more disciplined and his experiment with polyphasic sleep, but his mainstays are things like how to stay ahead of the game, and how to get ahead in the rat race… Here’s some standard fare from Steve:

Homelessness is a huge upgrade from traditional employment… Genuine opportunities are based on creating and/or delivering value.

Makes you think, doesn’t it? But now and then he writes some satire that has a bit of bite to it.

In the case of this post, though, I determined he doesn’t care much for organized religion.

The title kinda gives it away: Ten Reasons you should Never have a Religion. Here’s an example snippet that will enrage or entertain, depending on your disposition:

Religion is spiritual immaturity. That’s a compliment.

It’s entirely possible to enjoy your life without spending so much of it bent over in submission. Pull your head out of your rear, and look around with your own two eyes. If you need something to worship, then feel grateful for your own conscious mind. Pull it out of the cobwebs, and boot it up.

– Steve Pavlina

Ouch!

Here’s a website that has a scad of neat optical illusions, some I’ve never seen before:

http://www.moillusions.com/2008/04/magnificent-cg-impossible-objects.html

But the neatest I’ve seen yet is this actual implementation of M.C.Escher’s waterfall:

http://www.moillusions.com/2011/02/escher%E2%80%99s-waterfall-brought-to-life.html

Shadows are important here, and this guy has done a great job of making sure most of them are spot on. But notice when he walks between his light source and the object, the shadows are a bit wonky, telling me that the right tower is way in the distance, but the left tower is much closer to the camera. Plus, when the water makes it to the last bend, there’s a bit of delay before it shows up on the last leg — there’s some magic involved behind that top-right post…

Enjoy constitution day tomorrow — what liberties we have left remain because the fellas who put our U.S. Constitution together had lots of sense.

http://tinyurl.com/acqbv

Got this little tidbit in an email from my brother today:

What have we learned in 2,064 years?

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”
- Cicero, 55 BC

evidently nothing…

So, this snippet from Cicero assumes that all of these things are good.

There are lots of neat places to look online for the great Solar Eclipse of 2009. While us Amurrikans were watching dusk settle on July 21, July 22 was already well underway for India, China and Japan… and that’s where you could see all the Eclipse-y goodness.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1912109,00.html?xid=rss-photoessays