links for 2007-12-30
December 31st, 2007 by timelady
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Imagine a solar panel without the panel. Just a coating, thin as a layer of paint, that takes light and converts it to electricity.
…we shape the world.
Watch this. I couldn find a flaw in this manś compelling argument. I challenge you. Go on. I dare you. Double dare. Whatever it takes to get you to watch.
You see, he asks a question at the very end - and I cannot answer it at all positively.
If you can´t view embedded, please go here.
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…and feel angry.
Penguin gets promoted in Norwegian Navy. Seriously.
The penguin in question, the delightfully named Nils Olav, was promoted on Wednesday to Colonel in Chief of the Royal Norwegian Guard.
Some days, my joy knows no bounds. What a delightful world we live in:)
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…there is a Santa Claus.
Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York’s Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897.
“DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?”
VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
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…and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.
Merry whatever you celebrate people. I personally keep this time of year as a time to let the kidlets have a blast[1]. So have a good one, and stay safe.
And for my wonderful Richard : Geeks at Xmas. Santa came early this year in bringing you to me!
[1] Family is for everyday, not one day a year.
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