Mysterium Tremendum
Well, I ran into a new blog tonight called Mysterium Tremendum. It looks pretty interesting, so you'll now find it on my blog roll.
What really caught my attention was the title. It is derived from Rudolf Otto's statement “mysterium tremendum et fascinans” (which roughly means trembling and fascinating mystery), a description Otto used to describe Holy or numinous experience. It's a good statement, I think, for describing the experience of the Holy and if the name of a site can be any kind of indication, it ought to signify a good new blog starting up.
Anyway, uiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur. (Ten points to the first commenter who knows what that means
).
Here's hoping...
Well, it has been awhile since I mentioned the great Mac experiment here. Right now I'm sitting at my Mac waiting for Roxio Toast 5 to install (Great Mac experiment part 3 or something like that). I bought Roxio Toast back in August when CompUSA had it on sale but haven't had a chance to try it out yet. I'm hoping it will solve the problem of both external burners that I've tried on the Mac not being supported.
I got my current burner (and Iomega Predator) to work on the Mac with a shareware program, so I hope Toast works too! We'll see in a moment or two…
I'm Not Insane!!!
Or Maybe I am. My little voices haven't decided yet. Here's two more “stupid web polls” I did:
Myers-Briggs Personality TestA famous pyschology test — how can I resist trying it?
| ENTJ - “Field Marshall”. The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 5% of the total population. |
I don't know anything about this one.
Conscious self | Overall self |
 |  |
Go Endorse Tony!
The Blogger's Congress has a nomination process going on for caucus leaders. Tony “I Am Always Right” Rosen currently needs three more nominations by tonight if he is going to compete in the election and try for the title of “Supreme Potentate” (his choice of titles) of the Blogger's Congress. If you haven't nominated someone already, why not nominate him?
What Kind of Thinker Are you?
Christopher came across this quiz on the BBCi website. Mine fits me pretty well, I think — better than I would have thought a 36 question quiz could do.
You are an Existential Thinker Like existential thinkers, Leonardo questioned man's role in the universe. Many of his paintings explored the relationship between man and God. Existential thinkers:
Other Existential Thinkers include
- Like to spend time thinking about philosophical issues such as “What is the meaning of life?”
- Try to see beyond the 'here and now', and understand deeper meanings
- consider moral and ethical implications of problems as well as practical solutions
The Buddha, Gandhi, Plato, Socrates, Martin Luther King Careers which suit Existential Thinkers include
Philosopher, Religious leader, Head of state, Artist, Writer
So, how about you? Take the quiz and post (or link to) your results.
Did you konw tihs?
Phaeprs you've aaelrdy heard, but in case you haven't, acdcnroig to a veirtay of seourcs (none of whcih seem to pniot to the ogrniial), wdors can be ctpeolelmy saelrmbcd, ohter than the frsit and lsat lreetts, and you can sltil rezcoigne the wrdos. This anetrplapy is bcaesue we don't read every leettr of a wrod bfroee rzeigoncnig it.
Mybae I slohud sratt ptonsig lkie this all of the tmie?
Whirlwind
Well, things have been hectic the last week. Catching up with business, personal and church work has pretty much consumed every last moment of time. I finally got most everything done yesterday. So today was mostly free, which is nice (especially nice since my free day collided with my birthday). At any rate, I haven't abandoned asisaid, I just haven't had time the last few days.
I should be able to resume a regular posting schedule here and at Sakamuyo, now.
The International Small Town
On e-mail lists, I've met a number of great people that I've later gotten to know better via private e-mail or perhaps even a phone conversation. I've also made a lot of friends on the list I started with a few fellow Christian GNU/Linux users last year. It's small enough people can post a bit more about themselves there. However, for the most part, the people still feel distant. Personal web sites also seem somewhat distant, perhaps because they are often stale and non-interactive.
Blogging is different. I really feel like I “know” many of the bloggers on my blogroll even if I only know them through blogging. Through blog postings you sort of experience what the people are going through in a way that seems very different than other forms of remote communication. Comments and trackbacks also help in this respect.
It's interesting too how the different “communities” of the blogosphere form, perhaps that's part of the charm. It's like a small town. I might link to something Kevin or Christopher has to say or some such. Sometimes its just a link, sometimes it starts something much larger than just a link — such as Pressed's Southern Baptist posts that got me motivated to write on the UCC's current state (Part III is on the way).
Like a small town, when someone new “moves in,” word spreads pretty quickly. When Sophoristically Speaking launched, it took only a month or two for many blogs I read, and my blog, to link to it. While this happens in the web at large, it doesn't happen nearly as much. I posted stuff on my site when it was just a site and didn't have a blog, and it went largely unnoticed in the billions of pages on the internet. It was only entering the blogosphere, or more precisely, the small community of it that I'm largely in, that I really started to get interaction about what I posted.
By small community, I'm referring to the set of bloggers that I link to that largely link back and forth between each other. Like a small community, probably each “resident” knows people they border on that others in the community might not have met yet. For instance, Josiah “flickerfly” Richie's blog links mostly go to blogs outside of the community of bloggers I link to. But, as I link to stuff he mentions and vise versa (as he recently did on a post or two of mine), those communities come together to an extent like two small towns converging toward their borders.
Through this method, you get to meet a lot of great people. My personal experience with blogging began when Ciaran gave me this blogging script. I read his blog, but I didn't venture out into the blogosphere. Then another friend of mine, Kevin started a blog and slowly reading comments and visiting links I was “introduced” to bloggers he read, such as Christopher. From there I went on to run into Pressed, Le Renard, Susan and Katie, Tony, Justin (Sophorist) and others. In a reverse manor I met Jake and Owen (of the late gooddogbaddog.ca).
The interesting thing about this community within the blogospheres is that it may actually be more of a “virtual community.” In that there are no real boundaries, each blogger exists in a community that is slightly different than his neighbors. My “community” covers a slightly different region of the blogosphere than another blogger's community. I can't simply say “my blog is located in Blogosville.” To someone outside of the blogosphere, there is no community, only an incomprehensible number of blogs. However, once inside the blogosphere this “virtual community” forms between one's blog and the blogs of those who read and link back and forth to that blog. Certainly not a community in the sense we are use to in the physical world, but still strangely similar in many senses.
All of this is part of the nature of the blogosphere and makes blogging the interesting activity it is. I wonder — are different sectors of the blogosphere sort of forming a replacement for the small community that most of us no longer have the opportunity to live in? How will these “virtual communities” grow and change in the future? And most of all, are you thinking I'm off my rocker for talking about virtual communities at all?
Denominational Loyalty Ain't What It Use to Be
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