Our deepest insights must—and should—appear as follies, and under certain circumstances as crimes, when they come unauthorizedly to the ears of those who are not disposed and predestined for them.
– Beyond Good and Evil

Briefly and regrettably, they belong to the LEVELLERS, these wrongly named “free spirits”—as glib-tongued and scribe-fingered slaves of the democratic taste and its “modern ideas” all of them men without solitude, without personal solitude, blunt honest fellows to whom neither courage nor honourable conduct ought to be denied, only, they are not free, and are ludicrously superficial, especially in their innate partiality for seeing the cause of almost ALL human misery and failure in the old forms in which society has hitherto existed—a notion which happily inverts the truth entirely! What they would fain attain with all their strength, is the universal, green-meadow happiness of the herd, together with security, safety, comfort, and alleviation of life for every one, their two most frequently chanted songs and doctrines are called “Equality of Rights” and “Sympathy with All Sufferers”—and suffering itself is looked upon by them as something which must be DONE AWAY WITH.
– Beyond Good and Evil

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.
– Beyond Good and Evil

A man’s estimates of value betray something of the STRUCTURE of his soul, and wherein it sees its conditions of life, its intrinsic needs.
– Beyond Good and Evil

Feature Image Credit

The following are comments I wrote on the YouTube video, Silence – The Deconstruction of Faith, a great video essay, itself, where I lay out my frustrations with the film. I have recorded them here for posterity and access.

This film was frustrating for its lack of biblical knowledge that would be directly relevant to the moral choices.

Christian martyrs don’t “die for their priests” they stand firm because Christ Himself told us to take up our Cross and follow Him, and Christ Himself also said “he who denies me before men I will also deny before the Father.”

This film displays a lack of respect for the material and the real, recorded lives of Christian martyrs who gave and give their lives still to follow Christ and love their neighbor.

See the Jesus Freaks books for modern tellings of both past and present martyrs, young and old.

@conan263 See the book of Matthew ch 10 the context makes it clear it’s literally a life and death choice. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+10&version=ESV

 

@conan263 Show off, flaunt, no. That’s the problem with the film, it’s based on a book, a work of fiction, rather than the source material of both, both historical records of martyrs and the Christian Bible. Scorsese and the book have an agenda, a message they wanted to deliver. They accomplished that at the sacrifice of truth.

In 2020, I decided to take a few months and update my skills with some online courses from Coursera, Udemy, EdX, etc. I started with Coursera but quickly ended up finishing 35+ courses in about 5 months, mostly Udemy courses. I quickly discovered that I was repeating myself when writing course reviews and decided to formalize it a bit.

Here’s my online course checklist. I hope it helps somebody in picking quality courses and in writing their own helpful reviews.

• Overall
  • Overall valuable course.
  • Overall okay course.
  • Overall not a valuable course.
• 1080p Videos
  • Good – Has 1080p videos.
  • Improve – Include 1080p or higher videos.
• Volume Levels
  • Good – Consistent volume levels.
  • Improve – Inconsistent volume levels.
• Audio Quality
  • Good – Clear audio quality.
  • Improve – Inconsistent audio quality.
• Vocal Speed
  • Good – Vocal speed fast enough at 2x.
  • Improve – Vocal speed at 1x is too slow resulting in 2x being too slow.
• Has Transcripts
  • Good – Has transripts.
  • Improve – Include transcripts.
• Has Captions
  • Good – Has captions.
  • Improve – Include captions.
• Has single PDF of course notes slides
  • Good – Has single PDF of course notes slides.
  • Improve – Include single PDF of course notes slides.
• Has single zip download of all resources
  • Good – Has single zip download of all resources.
  • Improve – Include single zip download of all resources.
• Quiz Pacing
  
  • Good – Quizzes paced nicely.
  • Improve – Quizzes are can sometimes be too frequent.
  • Improve – Quizzes are can sometimes be too spread out.
• Quiz Length
  • Good – Well sized quizzes.
  • Improve – Quizzes sometimes too short (recommend 5-10 questions).
  • Improve – Quizzes sometimes be too long (recommend 5-10 questions).
• Minimal distracting visual or audio effects
  • Good – Minimal visual/audio distracting gimmicks.
  • Improve – Reduce visual/audio distracting gimmicks.
• Minimal reading material – Should be in video format for flow
  • Good – Minimal reading material (uses video to cover most topics).
  • Improve – Reduce reading material (use video to cover most topics).
• Minimal intros/outros to reduce time waste
  • Good – Minimal intros/outros to reduce time waste.
  • Improve – Reduce intros/outros to reduce time waste.
• Intros/Outros Lack Substance/Value
  • Good – Intros/Outros provide just enough substance/value.
  • Improve – Intros/Outros do not provide enough substance/value.

I simply copy&paste the appropriate Good or Improve bullet points in order to create my reviews.

Course authors may find this list helpful as a checklist of what to look for in their coursea and what to include or not include when planning out courses.

PS. If Udemy happens to read this, the Rating descriptions provided are confusing. For example, “Good / Amazing” is confusing. Something might be “good” but far from “amazing”. Many times I chose “Good / What I expected”, instead. This kind of confusion and non-objective descriptions may be hurting your ratings system.

Credit: Featured Image

Nietzsche truly called the 20th and 21st centuries.

We live in the madness.

“Nietzsche went on to say that because God had died in the 19th century there would be two direct results in the 20th century.”

Catastrophic destruction and a universal madness.

“First, the 20th century would become the bloodiest, most catastrophically destructive century in history, and second, a universal madness would break out and turn the West upside-down.”

“Truth would become lie and lie truth; evil would become good, the unnatural would become natural, and the unholy would become holy.”

We live in the madness.

Quotes from  Nietzsche’s Dire Visions: Universal Madness and Genocide

This piece was originally a series of @Shovas tweets.

Credit: Featured Image

Enter Nim’s world this Christmas season and let his wintry world carry you to a land of northern lights, falling snow, playful gremlins, sleeping giants, chilly horses, and one little girl who still believes in good. Rest, and refresh, as Ola Schubert draws you into Nim’s magical land in his wonderously hand-crafted and richly orchestrated tale, Nim’s Vintersaga.

Enjoy!

The original flash homepage seems to be up still but who has flash anymore?

Love God and Neighbour

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40

Preach the Gospel and Make Disciples

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

Mercy Triumphs over Judgment

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment. James 2:12-13

Featured Image by Jens Johnsson from Pexels

I watched John Wick 1 again to remember why I liked it and figure out why I don’t like the sequels.

The first movie is serious and dark and the humour that is there is dark humour. The action was honest just making it work action. The violence wasn’t the focus either. There’s surprisingly little blood shown.

The second movie focused too much on violence, blood and world building instead of character and story.

The third just became a fourth wall breaking caricature of itself with even more focus on shallow violence, slapstick, and “funny” “in” jokes because the movie knows that we know that it’s so over the top.

Their mistake is thinking the audience wants a reality check when what they really want is escapism for two hours, like every other good movie.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk

Context: These tweets were taken from a messaging group with friends in August 2019. Apparently the movies still bother me and my ego really is that big.

This is also a series of @shovas (me) tweets.