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From "An Easy Way to Become a Saint" book by Fr. Paul O'Sullivan (Catholic, 1949) https://archive.org/details/AnEasyWayToBecomeASaintOSullivanFr.PaulO.P.E.D.M.

On Morning and Evening Prayers:

Our first and most important prayer is the Morning Offering. Immediately on arising, we should fall on our knees and make this offering, slowly and deliberately, as already explained above.

Morning and evening prayers are most important factors in human life. Far from being a matter of minor importance, they are the most urgent of our daily obligations. If well said, they obtain for us all needful graces and protect us from the many evils that may be awaiting us in the course of the day. If badly said or omitted, we expose ourselves to grievous calamities. Many fall victims to disease or are killed by accidents or meet with premature deaths because they had not prayed.

Morning prayers as found in prayerbooks are five, viz., the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Apostles' Creed, the Confiteor and Hail Holy Queen. At night we add to these a short examination of conscience with a fervent Act of Contrition.

Had we the misfortune to fall into mortal sin, we must redouble our contrition and go to Confession as soon as possible. By mortal sin we expel God from our souls and give His place to the devil. These prayers must be said slowly, reverently, on our knees and in our bedroom. In this room we spend a third part of our lives, and here we shall probably die. Therefore, it is well to sanctify it by our daily prayers.

On Morning Prayer:

The first act of every good Christian in the morning is to fall on his knees and make his Morning Offering. It can be done in this wise:

"Sacred Heart of Jesus, through the most pure hands of Mary, I offer Thee all the prayers, works and sufferings, all the actions of this day and of all my life, in union with the Masses being offered all over the world, for the intentions of Thy Sacred Heart and for the Apostleship of Prayer. Every breath I draw, every beating of my heart, every glance of my eyes, every step I take, every single act I do, I wish to be an act of love for Thee."

This little act takes one minute, but it must be done slowly and with full deliberation. We must mean what we say. It is a short act, but it gives immense value to every action. Our every act, as a consequence, gives glory to God and receives a distinct reward in Heaven.

This offering has still more value if, from time to time during the day, we renew it by saying briefly: "All for You, dear Lord." Who can be so foolish as to neglect this sacred obligation, yet many make the act in a careless, distracted fashion. Some do not make it at all!

All the saints and holy writers attach the gravest importance to the Morning Offering.

The Transfiguration of Christ is the culminating point of His public life, as His Baptism is its starting point, and His Ascension its end.

About a week after His sojourn in Cæsarea Philippi, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them to a high mountain apart, where He was transfigured before their ravished eyes. St. Matthew and St. Mark express this phenomenon by the word metemorphothe, which the Vulgate renders transfiguratus est. The Synoptics explain the true meaning of the word by adding "his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow," according to the Vulgate, or "as light," according to the Greek text.

This dazzling brightness which emanated from His whole Body was produced by an interior shining of His Divinity.

Catholic encyclopedia on "Transfiguration": https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15019a.htm

The feast was present in various forms by the 9th century, and in the Western Church was made a universal feast on August 6 by Pope Callixtus III to commemorate the lifting of the Siege of Belgrade (1456).

https://infogalactic.com/info/Transfiguration_of_Jesus

https://infogalactic.com/info/Dormition_of_the_Mother_of_God

The Feast of the Dormition is preceded by a two-week fast, referred to as the Dormition Fast. From August 1 to August 14 (inclusive) Orthodox and Eastern Catholics fast from red meat, poultry, meat products, dairy products (eggs and milk products), fish, oil, and wine. The Dormition Fast is a stricter fast than either the Nativity Fast (Advent) or the Apostles' Fast, with only wine and oil (but no fish) allowed on weekends.

Stumbled upon this concept of "pilgrimages". I feel like it's become a less known idea, of traveling with a religious purpose to a specific religious place. I guess for me it gives more of a purpose to travel, which sometimes otherwise seems to seem less appealing to me. (I've heard the word "travel" comes from a word related to "torture" because travel used to be a lot more difficult before modern times)

Any thoughts on the topic of religious pilgrimages?

Catholic encyclopedia on pilgramages: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12085a.htm

Once theophanies are localized, pilgrimages necessarily follow. The Incarnation was bound inevitably to draw men across Europe to visit the Holy Places, for the custom itself arises spontaneously from the heart. It is found in all religions. The Egyptians journeyed to Sekket's shrine at Bubastis or to Ammon's oracle at Thebes; the Greeks sought for counsel from Apollo at Delphi and for cures from Asclepius at Epidaurus; the Mexicans gathered at the huge temple of Quetzal; the Peruvians massed in sun-worship at Cuzco and the Bolivians in Titicaca. But it is evident that the religions which centered round a single character, be he god or prophet, would be the most famous for their pilgrimages, not for any reason of tribal returns to a central district where alone the deity has power, but rather owing to the perfectly natural wish to visit spots made holy by the birth, life, or death of the god or prophet. Hence Buddhism and Mohammedanism are especially famous in inculcating this method of devotion. Huge gatherings of people intermittently all the year round venerate Kapilavastu where Gaukama Gaukama Buddha began his life, Benares where he opened his sacred mission, Kasinagara where he died; and Mecca and Medina have become almost bywords in English as the goals of long aspirations, so famous are they for their connexion with the prophet of Islam.

...

Again it may be noted how, when the penitential system of the Church, which grouped itself round the sacrament of the confessional, had been authoritatively and legally organized, pilgrimages were set down as adequate punishments inflicted for certain crimes. The hardships of the journey, the penitential garb worn, the mendicity it entailed made a pilgrimage a real and efficient penance (Beazley, "Dawn of Modern Geography", II, 139; Furnival, "The Stacions of Rome and the Pilgrim's Sea Voyage", London, 1867, 47). To quote a late text, the following is one of the canons enacted under King Edgar (959-75): "It is a deep penitence that a layman lay aside his weapons and travel far barefoot and nowhere pass a second night and fast and watch much and pray fervently, by day and by night and willingly undergo fatigue and be so squalid that iron come not on hair or on nail" (Thorpe, "Ancient Laws", London, 1840, 411-2; cf. 44, 410, etc.).

You can't disprove flat earth theory... or can you?

Is Japan pretty anti-vax in general?

A happy Independence day to those in the U.S.

This holiday I'm thinking of the relation of technology to freedom and politics: does technology make us freer, or less free?

A variety of views seem to exist, from authoritarians viewing technology as helping them to enforce views of an authority, to authoritarian views that technologies are dangerous to authority and they wish to suppress them [1], to views that technology takes away freedom, to views that technology enhances the freedom of the individual.

What are your views of technology and the relation it has to politics?

1. https://infogalactic.com/info/Internet_kill_switch

Someone shared this:

https://apnews.com/article/covid19-vaccines-deaths-hospitalizations-3258cacee8d5d2d08ddaf4341470a7de

About 300 COVID-19-associated deaths were occurring weekly in May, according to the most recent provisional CDC data.

So I looked up for comparison CDC's flu stats, for 2023-2024 season:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm

according to this CDC page there was a lower limit of about 25,000 deaths to flu per year (2023-2024) which comes out to about 480 / week on average

I suppose then multiple questions are asked, like do we have a flu pandemic if there are worse deaths? Do we not take flu seriously? Do we take "covid" too seriously? Are covid deaths just flu deaths? etc.

Chime in on your thoughts of the data

The Break key is a keyboard key whose original purpose was to immediately halt execution of a running a program. On modern computers, it has no default function. It is not commonly used, although any software may use it for its own purpose. The Break key may also be remapped with a program like AutoHotkey.

We will all have seen disabled people who do not have the use of their hands, attempting to communicate using 'unicorn sticks' or even eye-tracking technology. I considered this and wondered if the simple Makey Makey board could be pressed into service to provide a quicker and lower-cost way to replace a mouse and thus facilitate a whole host of ways to communicate.

We all know how sensitive and controllable our tongues are. We can easily send our tongue to any tooth and the tip can easily determine items as small as a piece of trapped food or even a human hair.

Since many disabled people still have the full use of their tongue, it occurred to me that it may be possible to put together a mouth controller using the Makey Makey interface to connect to an onscreen keyboard.

Was brainstorming some ideas like this and found something that already exists that I thought was interesting to share