May 2012 – Marcel Gagné

How Fast Do You Read?

Marcel Gagné May 31, 2012 UncategorizedLeave a comment

Here's a fun way to spend 2 minutes and discover how fast you read, your level of comprehension, and how you compare to the national average. You also get to discover how many books you can read on various eBook readers and how long it would take you to read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Assuming you wanted to do that. If you're curious, click on the eBook reader image below to launch the test. For the record, I read 469 words per minute and I got all three comprehension questions right. Supposedly, this makes me a better reader …

The World Ended Yesterday. How Do You Feel?

Marcel Gagné May 28, 2012 UncategorizedLeave a comment

In case you missed it, yesterday was the end of the world. Again. According to Ronald Weinland, the author of "2008 – God's Final Witness", the countdown to the end of the world started December 14, 2008 when the "the First Trumpet of the Seventh Seal of the Book of Revelation sounded". Trumpets are always extremely popular harbingers of doom. If you hear a trumpet, duck. But I digress . . . Apparently, since December '08, things have been going seriously downhill and now Armageddon has (apparently) happened and we're all dead. Apparently. I, for one, am sincerely happy that …

Christians on the Edge of Atheism

Marcel Gagné May 16, 2012 UncategorizedLeave a comment

A great many Christians are sailing awfully close to the edge of atheism in trying to justify those things in the Bible that are distateful to them. Say what you want about the moral lessons therein and the Word of God, there's a lot of truly hateful things in the Bible as well. Anyone who truly believes that every word of that book is the absolute Truth, direct from God himself, is a potentially dangerous person and I sincerely hope somebody is keeping a close eye on their actions. The Bible, after all, condones slavery, rape, and murder in countless …

Firefox Gestures

Marcel Gagné May 14, 2012 UncategorizedLeave a comment

Firefox is default Web browser in many Linux distributions and one of the most popular browsers around. Firefox is an excellent browser on many counts, but one if its coolest features is its ability to add features and capabilities through a system of extensions. A good thing too, at least from the perspective of this discussion. You see, gestures aren't built in to Firefox, so we need to get them elsewhere and we do that by installing an extension. Extensions are program enhancements that can dramatically change how you work with your browser. This framework of extensions makes Firefox not …

May the 4th be with you!

Marcel Gagné May 4, 2012 UncategorizedLeave a comment

On this, Star Wars day (May the 4th, in case you need an explanation), take a moment to enjoy this great parady video called the Stormtrooper Shuffle. It's a video project created by students from the University of Lethbridge, in Alberta.

Lying to Yourself is a Lie

Marcel Gagné May 4, 2012 UncategorizedLeave a comment

For reasons I can't quite explain, I found myself obsessing over the concept of "lying to yourself" a few days ago. It's a common enough phrase, an expression that says you aren't being honest with yourself on some level. What started to drive me crazy about the phrase, as I rolled it over and over in my head, was a growing conviction that it was impossible to lie to yourself. It is, however, possible to be deluded, to find yourself in a state of questionable sanity. Human beings are subject to all sorts of mental failings and we are easily …

Beautiful Beltaine!

Marcel Gagné May 1, 2012 UncategorizedLeave a comment

Beautiful Beltaine, everyone! 'Tis the (ancient) traditional beginning of the summer season, of flowers popping up, and that whole fertility thing. Put up the Maypole and let's do a little dance. And, in honour of Beltaine, I bring you Men Without Hats and "Safety Dance"!