Sunspots 576

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: Heart, Mind, Soul and Strength asks what we really want to see.

Ken Schenck on four different ways God may interact with us when it seems we should fight something or somebody.

A contributor to BioLogos discusses what the Bible says about whether God intended death to be part of creation.

A commentator in Baptist News Global writes about some things he has learned about transgender people.

Computing: The US Government's information technology is, in at least some areas, woefully out of date. National Public Radio reports that our nuclear weapons personnel use systems with floppy disks. Some of you don't even know what those are, or were.

The Environment: (sort of) Listverse reports (with photos) on 10 places that look like they aren't real, but come from fantasy novels. But they are real.

History: Listverse reports, with interesting facts about the Romani, aka Gypsies.

The Asahi Shinbun (Japanese newspaper, in English) reports on the significance of origami cranes, including four that were apparently made by President Obama, probably with some help from others.

The New York Times has a pictorial report on walls built to keep people out (or in). They haven't stopped lots of people.

Science: NPR reports on the discovery of a really large sponge, which is, presumably, very old.

Wired reports on Tide's stain-erasing pens -- what chemicals are in them.



Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 565

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: Listverse reports on 10 non-European languages that have provided words which are common in English.

Christianity: Reaction to a poll of Israelis, from Christianity Today and Relevant. Israeli Christians (mostly Catholic and Orthodox) are much less likely than US Christians to believe that Israel should be controlled by Jews.

Relevant wonders when conservative Christians will start to take global climate change seriously. (Some already do, of course.)

Ken Schenck argues that sex should be kept within a marriage.

In BioLogos, a discussion on the meaning of death in the Bible, and whether there could have been death before the Fall.

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware points out that you can use wildcards in Google searches.

From the same source: A freeware replacement for the Windows 8 or 10 start menu.

Wired reports that changing passwords frequently doesn't really make you more secure. (Provided, of course, that the password you are continuing to use is hard enough for the bad guys to figure out.)

Humor (and Food): A four minute YouTube video of a Kit Kat candy bar being surgically implanted into a Three Musketeers candy bar.

Politics: A writer for Sojourners says that he is a one-issue voter -- he's looking for a candidate with integrity. He doesn't seem to have found one.

The Washington Post reports on proposed US Constitutional amendments, lots of them. (Like 11,000+)

Fivethirtyeight counted up the phrases most often used, in the Republican Presidential debates, by Cruz, Kasich, Rubio and Trump.

Science: The Christian Science Monitor reports that ravens may have at least a rudimentary theory of mind. (The article tells you what that is.)

Fivethirtyeight tells us why most of us are right-handed.



Image source (public domain)