Sometimes, when I get home late in the night and the city lights are just in front of me I say to myself: “There is a life out there”. And then the question comes into my mind : “Do I wanna go back?”

The answer is still no.

Image : http://www.flickr.com

Diving is a popular activity since 1940. It was noted sailor and adventurer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan who first created the Aqua-Lung, who was the first type of diving commercially available equipment. Denver Divers discovered that modern diving equipment today, which is among equipment suppliers Diving Colorado to be used wet or dry suits, buoyancy control and a certain type of breathingequipment.

The type of clothes you wear depends on the temperature of the water in which you can use your diving equipment. Colorado diving enthusiasts who visit Mexico or the Cayman Islands you will find the water temperatures warm nearly eighty degrees. Can wear a dress or a short-body diagram as the basis of their diving gear Denver. These types of clothing that can be found in stores of diving equipment in Boulder allow a thin layer of water to penetrate inside the rubber layer and the aqueouslayer helps to retain heat. In very warm waters of the eighties up to ninety degrees, and can be worn more than the bare skin or a lightweight nylon pack under your diving equipment. Denver Divers who swim in colder waters with temperatures below seventy degrees will require a drysuit, as part of their under equipment. Subacquei Colorado use this feature to warm the body with a layer of air in silent film. The costume can also come with gloves and boots, or perhapsjacket or cap. If you are a beginner, you can be sure the selection of diving equipment. Colorado Scuba shops can offer good advice and help you select the appropriate report.

SG & A is also used as part of your diving equipment. Denver Divers usually wear a specialized vest that increases or decreases the air pressure and may also include lead weights. They are required to maintain the proper depth of the water when you dive in Boulderequipment.

You'll also need the proper breathing gear as part of package of Denver full equipment for diving. Divers breathing compressed air or a mixture of nitrogen-oxygen that is transported in tanks on their backs as the heart of their diving equipment. Subacquei Colorado include a controller is connected to the tank and check the pressure of the air leaving the tank so that it is a safe level for breathing. There are two parts of a regulator. The first phase is linked to fresh air and the second step connects the tube to the first phase and includes the mouthpiece through which they can breathe air. There are also pony tanks and air units of the exchange of air for emergency supplies and a snorkel to breathe when you're near the water surface to maintain the air in your tank you want include your gear in Boulder.

It is difficult to get the right equipment when you start Out, so be sure to contact a qualified Colorado> Suppliers of equipment for diving, which can contribute to help select the appropriate report to your specific situation of immersion.

http://kaitlyn3f4.livejournal.com/ http://leexannxnord.anyhow5.com/

It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer. 

Isaiah 65:24

 In today’s speedy telecommunications God has ATT or Verizon beat by a large margin.  He can answer me before I even call.  I never need to ask “Can you hear me now?” 

In Daniel, Gabriel was on the way with an answer before Daniel had even completed the request… Daniel 9:20-23.  God who knows how many hairs are on my head does not need me to ask Him for anything… but I need to do the asking.  I need to have a humble heart and approach the throne with my needs.  Understanding all the while that God loves me and sends me His loving attention.  Often, He uses the people in my life… my husband, my family, my friends.  A smile even from a stranger can brighten my day and I believe is a gift from God to brighten my path. 

God knows my needs and blesses me with the incredible speed of anticipating those needs.  A friend of mine, a public health nurse, had to attend a seminar on SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) for her job.  Two weeks after she attended this class, her own daughter died of this disease.  God prepared her for the tragedy and helped her cope with the worst scenario in a loving way.  Even though it was something that had to happen, he helped her to understand and accept that she was guiltless.  She and her husband went on to have more children and their marriage still remains strong!  Too often this type of tragedy breaks a family even those with faith!

 Thank you Lord, for preparing an answer before I even know I have a question.  Help me always reach out to you!  For you are the Alpha and the Omega, my all knowing God!

Image via Wikipedia

A question posted by Teddy, a science graduate of UC Santa Barbara asked this question:

…Is it known how many calories human thinking takes?  I see in your archives that the brain uses 10% of the body’s energy, and I’ve heard that our brains draw 25% of our blood flow, and that 25% of the heat radiated from our bodies is radiated from our heads, but is this true for all mammals?  For all primates?  How many calories are consumed by the “higher functions” of the brain that are special to humans, and how many by the parts that are found in other mammals?

———————————-

Alex Goddard, Grad student, Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School answers…

Hi Teddy,

That’s a good question! I think the short answer is that it’s less energy than you might expect. I’ve tried to explain why I think so below.

First, I’d say that the basic energy expenditure per unit area of brain is probably the same between different types of animals. A human brain uses more total energy than a rat brain because it’s bigger and more complex. This idea probably applies to heat generation, blood flow and caloric requirement as well.

I saw somewhere that the brain uses 20% of your caloric input for the day. I don’t think that number is absolute, but it seems reasonable. So, assuming you eat 2000 calories per day, your brain uses about 400 calories per day. Then, we need to ask, how much is spent on ‘thinking’ or cognitive abilities? (I’m leaving the idea of consciousness out of this, because it has no definition that has been agreed upon)

To start out, we need to realize that the energy expenditure of the brain at rest is really quite high. This is because maintaining a neuron’s baseline is very metabolically “expensive;” before neurons can transmit information, they have to be properly connected and maintained. A neuron’s ability to use electricity to transfer information comes at the cost of a large amount of energy; it needs to constantly pump different ions into and out of the cell (ions carry the electric charge). Maintaining the long nerves that may extend a meter (such as the ones from your brain to your spinal cord) is also metabolically taxing as new proteins have to be made constantly and shipped down the nerve. All these processes require energy, and we haven’t even sent any information down axons yet! I would contend that the amount of energy spent maintaining the cell is far more than is actually spent on sending an electrical impulse down an axon.

Ok, so cell maintenance requires a lot of energy. One could then ask the question, “What about the cognitive functions? How much energy do they require?” I think the best way to answer this would be to first ask, ‘How much of the brain is devoted to cognitive function?” If we could say that 50% of the brain was devoted to cognitive function, then we could say 50% of the energy is devoted towards maintaining cognitive function.

The answer to that question is a hard one to pin down. Most of the brain is involved in non-cognitive processing. The brain must recreate visual space from a bunch of pixels in your eye. It computes the location of a sound based on when the sound hits your right ear versus your left ear (within 2 degrees, I think). It maintains your balance, triggers fight-or-flight responses, and decides how your fingers must move to type on a keyboard. Lots of non-cognitive processes are going on.

Furthermore, cognitive abilities are distributed all over the brain. (For those not familiar with brain anatomy, take a peek here for reference for the following descriptions: http://normandy.sandhills.cc.nc.us/psy150/outerbr.gif )

For instance, a brain scan (functional MRI) of people doing arithmetic showed activity in frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and occipital lobe (although activation of the occipital lobe, the site of vision processing, may have had to do with the subjects seeing the math problem). Language processing and generation is located mainly in the temporal lobe and frontal lobe. Decision-making and determining the consequences of actions is thought to occur in the frontal lobe. Generally, the frontal lobe is thought to be a hot seat of ‘cognitive ability,’ but it is not a pure ‘cognitive center.’ It is thought to be involved in non-cognitive decision making (i.e. determining unconscious preference and value). So to ask how much of the human brain is solely dedicated to cognitive tasks, I’d have to hazard a very hand-waving guess of 5%. And that’s a pretty liberal guess. And most of the energy used is spent on maintaining the cells and connections in these areas, not the actual cognitive processing itself.

How does that relate to other animals, primate and non-primate? Primates have a very similar level of cognitive power. They do appear to have a simple form of language, and may even be able to read! ( http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/chimps.htm ). They can make complicated decisions. Non-primate animals definitely have cognitive abilities as well, such as decision making, risk assessment, and memory formation, though the degree to which these decisions are ‘conscious’ as in humans is quite debatable. I don’t know if I could put a number on how much more brain space and energy is spent on cognition by humans, because it could be the type and amount of connectivity between cells that is more important than the percentage of cells in the brain.

Lastly, I’ll just briefly mention one interesting tidbit of info. The process of being aware of your surroundings apparently requires a lot of energy, which is not surprising. The basic idea is that as you transmit information, it uses some energy. According to one report, “The high resting brain activity is proposed to include the global interactions constituting the subjective aspects of consciousness. Anesthesia by lowering the total firing rates correlates with the loss of consciousness.” That is to say, low conciousness = lower firing rates = less total energy consumed. fMRI really uses a measure of metabolism to determine firing rates:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12806834&query_hl=4

I hope that provides some insights. I don’t know if we know enough to calculate an absolute number. If you have more questions, please do submit them!

-Alex G

from What are the energy requirements of thought?

————————–

Can anyone translate that answer for the scientifically-challenged folks like myself?

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I can’t help but to keep thinking of all the religious strife that covers this planet all in the name of the all mighty.

I wonder how anything in this little place can be of any more significance

to that which is everything.

If one proton of one atom in my body has a billion solar systems in it’s being and one place there less than a speck of sand has beings living on it and they are made up of the same thing as I or I am made up of it because the speck and the me are one thing, inseparable except by my casting it out but I am all things so when I cast it out there is no place but back in to me it must go to be mixed again in an ever-changing, roiling mass of energy as known by me but which is unknowable to the speck. The total is me yet the speck is me.

I do not want to kill myself, I only want to let the speck change to my benefit. My purpose is only to be and the only battle should be against that opposite, not to be.

Perhaps Shakey Spear had it more right than is given credit except to be or not to be is not the question, it is the answer.

THE COOLING EARTH

Nowadays it is fashionable to talk and write about global warming; so much so that it may sound like blasphemy if I say that the Earth is cooling. But it is a simple fact that all members of the solar system except the Sun are in fact cooling off continuously from the time of inception. Any hot body will shed its heat until its temperature corresponds to the temperature of its environment. If we consider the Earth as a whole, including its atmosphere, the temperature may be roughly 250 degree C more than the outer space. It’s inevitable that the earth must cool off, for a considerable time to come.

 Heat received by the Earth from the Sun is neglible, beyond 55 degree north and 55 degree south latitude. The slanting sunrays will not produce any worthwhile heat. Again, the heat received in the middle region up to 8 am and after 5 pm can be ignored. Whatever heat is absorbed between 8 am and 5 pm is lost during the night! All this is in summer. In winter sunlight has no effect at all.

 “But we have striking and sufficient evidence that the superficial shell of the globe is not only heated above that of the ambient air, by the action of its own deep-seated fires”  (Physical Geography by Thomas Milner)

 How does the earth remain warm? We must look inwards for an answer. The interior of the earth is very hot (The reasons have been explained in the article below on Gravity). The temperature may be thousands of degrees C. Slowly this heat seeps outwards. As we go down the earth it becomes extremely hot. Heat may be transferred from the interior to the surface of the earth by the process of conduction. Heat is also transferred by water molecules. If there is no water in the oceans, the ocean beds would be extremely hot. But actually the temperature of the water in ocean beds may be of the order of 3 degree C. This is because of convection currents caused by the ice caps in the Polar Regions and the hot cauldron of sea bed below. This can be proved by a simple experiment.

 A drum filled with water may be heated from below and cooled by a block of ice floating above. If you measure the temperature, you may find the water slightly warmer below the ice block than the water at the bottom of the drum. Water molecules, absorbing heat at the bottom, travel up and ice cooled water from the top comes down. In the same way hot water from the sea bed goes up and water (at 0 degree C) below the polar ice cap travels down towards the sea bed. This way heat from the interior of the earth is slowly transferred to the sea water. Eventually this heat is transmitted to outer space.

 There is another less known mechanism of heat transfer, from the interior of the earth. Water molecules are driven towards the ocean beds under tremendous pressure. We know how it is, if it rains continuously for a few days! What if it rains for 365 days? Or imagine a water tank constructed in a field (bottom being earth without water) the height of the tank being 6kms. Well, this is how the ocean bed is! The constant pounding of the ocean bed by the pressure of up to 1000 atmospheres, makes the earth pulpy and water infiltrates down. Marine geologists tell us that the terrain below the ocean is not much different from the terrain of the continents. When the surface temperature of the earth was higher than 100 degree C, there was no water in the seas. There was no difference between land and sea. It was all land. The sea bed was normal height of the plain. The continents are merely plains of greater height like Tibetan plateau we are familiar with. There are mountains and valleys in the ocean beds also. Tunnels and caves we find in the continent are there in the sea beds too. These will get filled with water; under high temperature, acquired from geo-thermal energy and high pressure, the water becomes super heated steam. Water goes down but steam presses up and ultimately finds its way to the ocean. There are about 30 thousand volcanoes and any number of hot springs in the ocean through which heat continuously comes out. This may, perhaps, be the source of hot currents in the ocean.

 The oceans can never be heated from above. The warm layer of water formed by sun rays cannot travel down and will become cool before the next day break. The ice cold water from the Polar region will sink to the ocean bed, never to rise up, unless heated by the earth. Ultimately, the whole ocean will become a block of ice if the earth is heated only from above by the Sun.

 Let us now look at a strange thing about the Earth. The Arctic Circle is comparatively well populated with Eskimo’s etc living permanently there. The corresponding region in the Antarctic Circle is extremely cold and inhospitable. Man makes his presence felt in this region only in the southern summer. The reasons are obvious. The Arctic region being land locked, there are any number of hot springs there, (see my article on Saraswati ) warming the atmosphere. On the other hand the Antarctica is surrounded by deep oceans : the Pacific ocean on one side and the Indian ocean on the opposite side. There must be hot springs in this region also; but being too deep the warm waters get cooled.\

From the above discussion one thing is clear – the earth is kept warm by geo thermal energy, and not by the heat from the Sun. Today life forms depend very much on sunlight; but the bottom of the sea too contains even developed life forms. Tomorrow if the sun suddenly disappears, I am sure mother Earth will continue to nurture her children, giving the warmth from her own bosom.

 If you look at the map of the world, you will find that the whole of the hemisphere on the Pacific side and 90 % of the southern hemisphere is water. Comparatively few points of the continent comprise of urban areas. Industrial activity in these urban centers can contribute but a miniscule percentage to global warming, which has been going on much before industrialization. (see para on CO₂)

 Therefore, all this hullabaloo about global warming may be unwarranted.

According to one theory, ‘Ice Age’ occurs every 18,000 years or so. The warming earth melts the polar ice cap, and the ice cold water comes down to northern Canada, Europe and northern Siberia. This will cause severe winter and the whole area will be covered with ice ushering in another ‘Ice Age’. The cycle repeats itself.

Man.. Allen Iverson is retiring.  So much talent, so much passion, and so much attitude.  I still remember the first time he did THE CROSSOVER during an NBA game.  The next day, we spent the entire lunch period in the gym, trying to imitate him.  I know he had a few stumbles over the years, but I choose to remember the happier times.

The best to do it since Tim Hardaway.

Iverson’s statement [here]

Thanks for everything, AI.. We’ll miss you!

Thank you everyone who guessed in this week’s “Identify It!” challenge. Sorry that its taken us longer to get our answer posted than usual but its been a busy week getting ready for Thanksgiving. We’ve done three of these challenges so far and I’m always interested in people’s responses and their thought process.

We had some really good guesses this week but amazingly I was able to stump the fans because no one guessed the correct answer. I was actually expecting this one to be guessed very quickly but I guess we don’t have very many hardcore geologists or mineralogists in the audience at the moment.

Here is the answer: The object in question is a 6 inch diameter by 4 inch tall crystal formation of the mineral Fluorite. This formation is partially transparent (around some corners of some crystals) but is mostly translucent having a purple to violet color. It exhibits a cubic crystal formation typical of fluorite. More images (showing translucency and better coloration) can be found at our fan page on Facebook under the photo’s tab inside the “Rocks and Minerals” folder.

(see: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=125560&id=86177094101 )

Another View of our Fluorite Crystal

Fluorite is a widely occuring mineral that is often found in large deposits. It is a halide made of calcium fluoride (CaF2) and is found most often as cubic crystals though octahedral and more complex forms are possible. Fluorite occurs in a wide variety of colors including colorless, yellow, green, blue, purple and more rarely black, brown, red, pink, and white. Some fluorite samples fluoresce under ultra-violet light (fluorescence is actually named after fluorite, one of the first minerals discovered to posses this trait)

Fluorite uses include: ornamental use, as a gemstone, as a flux in steel and aluminum production, as a substitute for glass in some high quality optics applications, in some semiconductor manufacturing processes involving ultraviolet light, and in the production of hydrofluoric acid.

You can learn more about Fluorite and find pictures of very interesting samples at the following links:

A data table containing lots of information about Fluorite: http://www.minerals.net/mineral/halides/fluorite/fluorite.htm

Pictures of museum samples of Flurite: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/Minerals/fluorite.html

Bob’s Fluorite Gallery: http://www.peaktopeak.com/fluorite/index.php3

Lots of information and pictures of Fluorite: http://www.galleries.com/minerals/halides/fluorite/fluorite.htm

Wikipedia Entry on Fluorite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorite

(standard disclaimer: Wikipedia is not a primary source and since the site is publicly editable by anyone the accuracy of information should be called into question. Nevertheless Wikipedia is an interesting experiment as a publicly edited and maintained information repository similar to an encyclopedia and can provide interesting links to other primary sources. Please use appropriate caution when viewing articles on Wikipedia)

Thanks again to everyone who guessed in this week’s “Identify It!” challenge. Keep an eye on the Harris Educational fan page on Facebook for the next “Identify It!” later next week.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone!

I like you a lot

I love you and not

Until you show you care

I’m not gonna bear…

Just try a little harder

Before we go farther

I can’t stand this anymore

The problems, you ignore.

Do you really want me?

Have you ever loved me?

Do you mean what you say?

Or do you want another way?

If no one asked you, would you save my life?

Would you hug and kiss me and sleep with me all night?

If I was disabled, would you stay with me?

If you lose everything will you come to me?

Would you live all your life with me?

Can we raise a bigger family?

Would you tell me your secrets, your fears?

Would you laugh with me and share your tears?

Can I trust you all my life?

Will we ever be all right?

Will we ever be?

Can we?

Just a simple question

Waiting for an answer:

Will I ever be the luckiest?

Can I win your love and be the happiest?

A factor that is driving the trend towards automating the sales department is the extent to which speed has become a strategic advantage in the selling process. Once, it was acceptable for salespeople to promise to get back to customers with answers to questions. Increasingly, those salespeople are finding that by the time they get back to their customers with the necessary information, the sales opportunity has evaporated. The ability to respond to customers quickly is crucial to success, and the tolerances are narrower than ever before.

Similarly, the ability to compress the sales order cycle is becoming an extremely significant factor in a competitive situation. Your customers, who are under the same competitive pressures as you, are placing more and more emphasis on increased cash flow and reduced inventories. Reducing your sales order cycle from four days to two can make an important and measurable difference, certainly enough of a difference to determine whether or not you get the order.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

I was walking down the old dirt paths and slowly navigating my way through the landmine of pinecones and taking in each snapshot of scenery that dripped with raw beauty. I was taken in by all the things around me. The sweet harmonious melodies of the birds singing in choired unison and the romantic whispered chirpings of the cicadas’ calling me deeper into the forest, deeper into the night. It is this call that leads me to wonder if there is more to life than a book? Is all that life is, summed up in the pages of 66 authors?

I wouldn’t be able to share with you my experience in a captivating forest if all I did was read about the forest. I might be able to give you glimpses and a sort of scientific approach to what it might feel like if I were in a forest, but the experience is vastly different than the science. One is factual, the other is life-altering. This isn’t to say that facts don’t have the ability to change our lives, but studies have shown that one out of one person are always changed by their experiences, whether good or bad. I could have explained to you a map of the forest, but it wouldn’t have given you the contours, colors and outlines that you can only experience in person.

You can sit down and read a really good book. You might even feel like you are one of the characters drifting through each of the pages, but there is nothing like living your own story. If we replace the word living with writing, then maybe what we might be able to say is that all of us are still writing not just our story, but God’s story as well. We get to write with Him. In The Bible: The Biography by Karen Armstrong, she asserts that before the Old Testament was canonized that the Jews had this belief that they were responsible to reinterpret scripture as much as possible so that it was relevant and spoke to the current structures of society. In fact, one place, she even says that they had thrown out certain parts of scripture because it wasn’t relevant to the time. For most, this is a different view to what we have been taught(but just because it’s different doesn’t mean its not true). And if it is true, then what are the ripples in the pond? I think for those who believe the Bible holds all the answers then it seems like an attack rather than an enquiry, because it seems a bit reductionistic to try and make the Bible anything other than the Word of God. Yet, this is isn’t the hope of postmoderns or those with questions. It is to experience God as those in scripture did. So rather than see the bible as trail map to be studied, it is more like an invitation between friends to come and walk with God and discover the raw unedited beauty of the journey. To come and discover God. To “taste and see that he is good”. Both words for taste and see in the Hebrew when translated mean “to experience”. God is inviting us all not to simply read the pages, but live the pages. Write the pages. And Be the pages.

Postmodernism is running through the halls of our churches and fortune 500 companies and classrooms, but is postmodernism the enemy? Can’t postmodernism be a good thing too? It can help us revisit things and begin asking hard questions that maybe aren’t that comfortable but might be necessary to pursue together to find the answers to. Postmodernism is simply asking the question “Is there more to life than this? Is there more to the Bible than this? Is there more to truth than this?” The ancient Jewish followers of YHWH believed it was imperative to ask questions. To be Jew meant you had questions. To be a person who lived and breathed meant you were a person who was driven to seek answers to those questions, no matter how long the journey took. No matter where those questions took you, it was your responsibility as a Jew to make sure you found the answer.

Mercoledì 25 novembre la Sala Rocksound di Barcellona ospiterà il concerto di un promettente gruppo italiano. Si tratta dei To ed Gein, hardcore band proveniente da Olbia, Sardegna.
Il gruppo è composto da 6 elementi: Maurizio Pisciottu (Voce), Fabrizio Spano (Voce), Raffaele Manca (Chitarra), Luca Molinas (Chitarra), Michele Derosas (Basso), Salvatore Desini (Batteria).
La band ha da poco pubblicato l’album d’esordio, omonimo, ricevendo buoni riscontri da parte di pubblico e critica. I To Ed Gein sono una formazione giovane ma già ampiamente rodata. Dopo una seria gavetta in Sardegna, la band si è distinta per le proprie performance in più parti d’Italia. Nell’estate del 2008 i ragazzi hanno avuto l’onore di partecipare all’Heineken Jammin Festival, in qualità di gruppo d’apertura.
Attualmente la formazione è impegnata in un tour che prevede date in Italia, Svizzera, Germania, Francia, Spagna e Portogallo. Un giro dell’Europa reso possibile grazie al progetto “Brinca”, finanziato dalla Regione Sardegna con l’obiettivo di promuovere i gruppi underground al di fuori dell’isola e dell’Italia stessa.

Il valore aggiunto dei To Ed Gein rimane la grande presenza scenica: i loro live sono solitamente esplosivi, degni di una vera hardcore band.

Assieme a loro il mercoledì si esibiranno i Waiting For Better Days, anch’essi italiani (Bari), anch’essi autori di un hardcore rapido e potente. Una band molto valida, in continua crescita.
A fare gli onori di casa saranno gli Answer, hardcore band catalana. Il tour dei To Ed Gein in Spagna proseguirà con altre due date a Madrid e Vigo.

La Sala Rocksound di Barcellona si trova in Calle Almogàvers, 116, con Calle Pamplona (tra Barceloneta e Poblenou).

shh… i iz on teh fone.

Meditations in Job : 67. The Conclusion

Job 40:1-6 The LORD said to Job: “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!” Then Job answered the LORD: “I am unworthy–how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer– twice, but I will say no more.” Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm

There is a pause and the Lord looks Job in the face and challenges him to speak up and correct God – if he can! Answer up, He continues!  I can’t, Job replies, I am unworthy (or small and insignificant). I’ve spoken but I should say no more. So the Lord continues to speak and to challenge. Previously it had been on the grounds of Job’s lack of knowledge as compared with the Lord’s, but now it is on the grounds of his smallness and weakness, first as compared to God and then simply as compared to some of the creatures he sees on earth.

First, compared with the Lord: “Do you have an arm like God’s, and can your voice thunder like his? Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor, and clothe yourself in honor and majesty.” (v.9,10) i.e. does your power and splendour match that of God? “Unleash the fury of your wrath, look at every proud man and bring him low, look at every proud man and humble him, crush the wicked where they stand.” (v.11,12) i.e. can you bring down and humble the proud and the arrogant? Is this within your domain? Of course not!

Then the Lord refers to creatures on earth: “Look at the behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox.” (v.15). A note in your Bible suggests that this may refer to a hippopotamus or an elephant. The Lord describes him and ends with, “Can anyone capture him by the trunk, or trap him and pierce his nose?” (v.24) The implication is that in comparison we are puny and weak.  He moves on to the next creature in chapter 41: “Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope?” (Job 41:1) Again a note in your Bible suggests that this may refer to a crocodile. The Lord describes him and concludes, “No one is fierce enough to rouse him. Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.” (41:10,11)  i.e. if you can’t stand against such a creature how can you dare think you can stand against God who is so all-powerful and who made all things?  Almost tediously, to make the point, the Lord continues in verses 12 to 34 to describe this creature that is beyond our handling. The point is simply made: Job you are small and insignificant even in comparison to some of the other creatures that share the earth with you. Get yourself in perspective!

In the final chapter, Job eventually answers: “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, `Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” (v.2,3) i.e. I know you are The Great One, and you can do anything and I acknowledge I spoke out about things I don’t know about. He concludes, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (v.5,6) At last Job has a right perspective. Note he hasn’t all the answers and it hasn’t been explained to him what had taken place in the courts of heaven, but he is satisfied that God is so much greater – all-wise, all-knowing and all-powerful – and therefore it is foolish to argue with Him. What becomes assumed is that God is also all-good, for this is not just a mindless submission to a harsh dictator.

The Lord then turns to the three friends and chides them, “After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has… You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (v.7,8) He tells them to offer sacrifices for their folly and to get Job to pray for them. Perhaps more than their chastening, we should note the Lord’s affirmation of Job – Job had spoken rightly about God! Wow!

But the Lord doesn’t leave it there, “After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the LORD had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring. The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters.” (v.10-13) Yes, this is restoration. No, his previous sons and daughters cannot be brought back but he’s given a new family and immense prosperity.

The point of all that, surely, must be that any doubt over Job has been taken away. Here is a man who had been righteous and who had weathered this terrible storm and is declared still righteous by God and is rewarded accordingly.

Righteousness is possible and it is possible to maintain it in the face of immense suffering. That must be one of the obvious lessons that comes through this book. May you and I hold on to Job’s example as we live out our lives in this Fallen World where things go wrong.

Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait to hear the answer – iwise.com

Having always been interested in all types of philosophy, I’ve borrowed a book from a musician friend of mine called “The Mysticism of Sound and Music, the Sufi Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Kahn”. Since being in school, my mind has really opened up and Im beginning to look at everything from a designers point of view. I have realized that my mojo-amplification and ability to develop high-level concepts comes from my knowledge of different philosophies. I decided that I was going to read this book with my designer hat on and see what I could get from the book that would assist me with my career. 

The exceedingly nut-shelled version of Sufism is that the world and everything in it is made up of vibrations, ergo, everything is music. The teachings of Inayat Kahn (1882-1927) are popular among musicians, as you may of guessed, and apparently after reading his book one will perceive his own actions as music. I cannot comment on this as I am only on page 46 out of 304, but I will be sure to let you know upon completion of said book.

Last night at approximately 1:32 am, I came upon his essay ‘The Spiritual Significance of Colour and Sound”. In it, he writes of Harmony being a fact, not something one can point out. “Harmony is the result of the relation between colour and colour, the relation between sound and sound, and the relation between colour and sound”. We love certain colours throughout our lives, and as we grow or evolve, we lose contact with those colours. (There was a time when I was enamored by green. Lime green in particular. Currently I am more partial to purple.)
He says whether or not one is attracted to a certain colour “depends upon a person’s condition, whether he is emotional, passionate, romantic, warm or cold, whether sympathetic or agreeable”.  As I was reading this I was thinking  ‘makes sense.’ Depending on your mood you’re attracted to certain colours. Its also been proved that interacting with certain colours can effect your mood, hence colour theory 101.
If you’re designing something that is to convey romanticism, it probably wont be neon green, pink, orange and yellow. As the designer you know colour is so important and to envoke those emotions you may chose deeper, richer, colours such as dark red, purple or gold. They user may not be feeling romantic, but after interacting with your piece they should feel how you intended them to feel. At this point, what I read had only confirmed something I already knew. Then, I read this;

There are some whom striking colours appeal, to others pale colours. The reason is that striking colours have intense vibrations; the pale colours have smooth and harmonious vibrations, and it is according to the emotional condition of the man that he enjoys certain colours.

You may think that that has merely reconfirmed something I already knew as I did. I know from my experiences reading about different philosophies that there is always something on every page that can help you to grow as a designer. Philosophy helps you to open your mind and view the world from a different perspective. I completed the essay and to my dismay, I had read all out the spiritual significance of colour and not learned anything! I re-read the entire essay and when I came to the above quote and realized how it could assist me with my career;

It means that when presenting your work to a client, what they say regarding colour in your design has absolutely nothing to do with you, even if the whole design community agrees that sea foam is the only answer. How do you go about convincing someone that sea foam is the inevitable solution when they are vibrating on the neon green/ pink/ orange/ yellow level?! When you hear things like “I just don’t like it” or “It should be blue/ purple/ burgundy” its not only because they just don’t know any better, it is because according to their mood and their evolutional stage in their life (or their wife’s or mother in law’s), it is the inevitable answer to the problem. I don’t know if you’ll find this as profound as I did, but knowing this it may help to diffuse squabbles with clients over colour, or to simply not get so frustrated when they pull the ‘my wife thinks’ card. Its a way you can understand the guys in suits across the table whether you choose to believe that our actions are music or not.  

Read his stuff here