rujmah’s Dis-Collected Thoughts

Daniel B. Clendenin has published a list of ten warning signs that religion has turned evil. For example, “fanatical claims of absolute truth,” “identifying the Gospel with nationalistic ideologies,” and “blind obedience to totalitarian, charismatic, and authoritarian leaders.” Heavy, important reading if you’re interested in religion.

More on Religion, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islamism, and Judaism.

You have to hold down Ctrl, then double-click the gray area next to the word slides in the slides pane. Not the top title bar Slides but the second time Slides appears.

Some how managed to pull out the Slides pane in Impress (OpenOffice version of PowerPoint) and it was floating all around the place. Was really winding me up and a quick google found this article posted by Solveig Haugland in January 2006. Nearly four years ago!

Interesting for two reasons:
1) This post is still helping people 4 years on.
2) Why hasn't this been fixed yet?!

Richard Powers lounges in bed all day and speaks his novels aloud to a laptop computer with voice-recognition software. Junot Diaz, author of the Pulitzer-prize winning novel "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," shuts himself in the bathroom and perches on the edge of the tub with his notebook when he's tackling a knotty passage. Hilary Mantel, whose Tudor drama "Wolf Hall" claimed this year's Man Booker Prize, jumps in the shower when she gets stuck. "The number of pages I've got that are water marked, I can't tell you," Ms. Mantel said.

Great article (HT @guykawasaki - http://holykaw.alltop.com/how-to-write-a-great-novel)

Jay (http://onsitestudios.posterous.com/) put me on to this amazing house in a comment to my post about Steampunk and Oxford Museum of the history of science. Click through for the 360 degree experience.

Oxford University's Museum of the History of Science (http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/steampunk/) is hosting an exhibition of Steampunk Art as demonstrated by this image from the - somewhat scatty, but interesting - blog dedicated to the event.

The exhibition is on now until February 2010. I haven't been yet but intend to go this weekend.

The museum itself is pretty amazing and is the original site of Elias Ashmoel's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_Ashmole) museum (now housed at the other end of Broad St and around the corner in the grandest of Oxford's buildings). I would advise anyone to pop in and take a look.

If you get no further than the awe inspiring staircase I am certain that you would consider the time well spent.

Former Golf Pro Merryll McElwain on Getting Started with Golf

Former golf-pro turned Financial Analyst Merryll McElwain

Why is golf so important to relationship building? Why for women especially?

Merryll: Golf is one of the only sports where you get extensive quality time and conversation with someone. On the golf course, you have several hours of conversation available in between shots to really get to know someone. Golf has typically been a business tool for men. Women have used other ways to build relationships. I hear all the time from successful women who are frustrated with how difficult it is to break into the men’s club. Golf, in my opinion, is an excellent tool to do that.

Really interesting article on using golf as a professional enhancement technique.

Personally, I'd play more if I had the money and time as I love the game anyway.

Sniff... sniff... Is that a lame excuse I smell?

Well, maybe. But, the cost is a real turn-off for me. In the UK, at least, there is definitely a high financial cost to taking it up that I think stops most from even attempting to learn the game. This, of course, does result in a certain feeling of exclusion about golf for a lot of people.

I guess the choice is if you view it as an investment. But surely that would colour your enjoyment of it? "Well, that round of golf when really badly - not much for my ROI today..."

So it must depend on what you hope to gain from it. Certainly, in some cases, the networking aspect must be brilliant.

I once suggested to my then boss and friend of a small networking business in Oxfordshire (http://www.span-networks.co.uk/) that he pay for my membership of a local golf club.

My reasoning was this: His business was based on network support and services to local SMEs. It was doing ok, but sales were based on word-of-mouth referrals and established relationships. We were part of a large church and the friend network stretched quite far. But, not quite far enough. The way I saw it was that most of the clientèle at any one of the local golf courses would provide us with leads a-plenty. Most of the members being exactly the sort of people that made the IT decisions for their company or at least had influence. Relationships with just a few could provide extra business for the company.

My boss felt that the investment was too uncertain to shell out for at that stage. Though he was convinced enough to allow my colleague and I to arrive late in the day a few times when we played an early morning round

Also, he didn't like golf.

I totally understand the decision. The investment was too precarious. So when is it not? How long will it take to see a result of the investment?

Thanks to (http://reflectionof.me)

For some reason this makes me cry. But good cry.

Found this site via Holy Kaw's posterous (holykaw.alltop.com/how-to-apologize-like-a-man-2) today and have been really enjoying it.

Watch the @channelflip video to get a brief introduction to this. My impressions were the same as John's. I thought this would be a dry humour site along the lines of Despair Inc. or the Onion, but found it full of serious and well written posts about the Art of being a man.

Really enjoyed the So You Want My Job series (http://artofmanliness.com/2009/10/28/so-you-want-my-job-police-officer/) as well as the articles on hair and personal hygiene. Will be reading through the archives as there seems to be plenty here.

Nice job @artofmanliness