interstellar laundrette

Have you ever been asked the question “if God is so powerful that he can do anything, can he create a rock that is too heavy for him to lift?” It’s a logic game, and the reasoning goes like this: God, if he exists, is omnipotent [can do anything],Therefore, there can be nothing that he cannot do.if something can be found that God cannot do,then he is either not omnipotent,and not really God,or he does not exist.If God an create a rock that God cannot lift,then there is something he cannot do [lift the rock]if he cannot create such a rock,then there is something he cannot do [create the rock]therefore, in either case, he is not omnipotent,and not really Godor he does not exist. A lot of people consider this argument to be fair reason to disbelieve God’s existence entirely. When we say there is nothing God cannot do, what do we really mean? We tend to think of omnipotence as a big thing, that there is no grandiose display of power that God is not capable of. Are we still prepared t...

Most people have heard in one form or another the idea of the ill-fated and potentially furious cat from Shrödinger's famous thought experiment. Now I'm not a great scientific mind and it isn't my intention today to explain how that concept works or doesn't, so apologies to anyone who understands it better than me if I over-simplify it here. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, in the mid 1930's a fellow named Shrödinger was involved in the scientific discussion about how to understand quantum mechanics, and came up with an analogy that highlighted some of the issues he saw as potentially problematic in dealing with quantum entanglement by bringing the microscopic up to macro scale. (if you didn't understand all of that, it's okay – it's pretty complicated, and not necessary to follow the rest of the text here) In his thought experiment (meaning he didn't actually do this, just thought about it) a cat would be placed into a s...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RXmkftK0Sw*     Why does your heaven resemble earth with the same basic materials? It doesn't, we only have human words for those who have seen it to describe what they saw. I recently was in the position of having to find the words to describe a polished single surface floor rendered to look like plastic in the words of a fictional character who grew up in a shoemaker's house in a late medieval village in a house where the floor was probably straw covered dirt, or maybe wood, and stone floors with visible seams or natural surfaces were likely to be the only other options in his vocabulary. I really didn't want to say a floor like a single polished stone, but the only way i could find that he could describe it. Why does your god govern in a way that reflects the period in which he was written about? He doesn't, his system of governance was entirely unlike anything that existed in the time, until he established it, and then it was the on...

MINISTER: Ben, will you take Jess as your wife, to share your faith, and make a life? BEN: Yes, I take her as my wife we'll share our faith and make a life. MINISTER: Even if you're filthy rich, or sad and broke and in a ditch? BEN: Even if we're filthy rich, or sad and broke and in a ditch. I will take her as my wife and i will love her all my life. MINISTER: good or better, bad or worst, to choose to build this union first. BEN: for good or better, bad or worst, I'll choose to build this union first. even if we're filthy rich, or sad and broke and in a ditch. I do not like green eggs and.. oh.. Er, I will take Jess as my wife and i will love her all my life. MINISTER: forsaking all, you'll choose to stay, in health or sickness, come what may, BEN: forsaking all, I choose to stay, in health or sickness, come what may, for good or better, bad or worst, I'll choose to build this union first. even if we're filthy rich, or sad and...

If you are going to write metered poetry (that is, poetry that is not in free verse style), a good rhythmical structure can make the difference between professional looking poetry that wins awards, and amateur looking poetry that never gets taken seriously. Funnily enough, a good sense of rhythm can also have a dramatic effect on the emotive power of a piece of free verse poetry as well. Being able to cause the reader to read with a specific rhythm, or intentionally breaking them out of it, can have a significant effect on what can be conveyed through the poetry. This is the reason we (that is creative writing lecturers) insist on students learning to at least master something like iambic pentameter and have a basic understanding of some other commonly used rhythms. *Note - I am from South Australia and my pronunciation notes might not fit if you are from some other part of the world. The key to good rhythmic poetry is recognising the natural stresses in the English language...

In creative writing, there is a useful technique for getting information to the reader without a long introduction with copious background information. No doubt we’re all aware of the movie that opens with a narrator giving us the back-story to set the scene for the action to come in a massive info-dump. “It is the year 2268 AD and the world’s population have rebelled against the technology of terror warfare, blamed for the great holocaust of 2207...” This could go on for several pages before we actually get to even meet the protagonist. Most writers know that info-dumping like this is to be avoided. But there is a better way to get this information to the audience, and good writers do it well. The technique I'm talking about is clever use of dialogue. The trick is to get your characters to say things that will clue your audience in on what they need to know. Imagine a couple of field workers taking a break from their work, and one saying to the other, “My Grandfather always s...